


Who Killed Jenny Schecter? -- The Miniseries Screenplay

by OGSalli



Category: The L Word (TV 2004)
Genre: Screenplay/Script Format
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-17
Updated: 2020-09-09
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:27:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 47,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25059235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OGSalli/pseuds/OGSalli
Summary: Downton Abbey meets Broad City meets lesbian Charlie’s Angels. A character study mini-series disguised as a murder mystery full of humor, sarcasm, and snark, featuring the most beloved L-Word characters. It’s long, it’s wordy, it’s edgy. No car chases, no running gun battles, nothing explodes. (Spoiler alert: no sex scenes, either.) Exes Shane and Carmen team up with a new character, Det. Lauren Hancock, the Three Alt-Musketeers who track down the killer of that out-of-control bitch Jenny Schecter, because somebody’s gotta do it. Bodies pile up (not in a good way) and there’s plenty of suspects. Somebody dies.
Kudos: 2





	1. Who Killed Jenny Schecter -- The Mini-Series Screenplay Part 1

**WHO KILLED JENNY SCHECTER?**

An _L-Word_ Mini-Series

By O. G. Salli

Based on the characters from _The L-Word_

With Additional Characters by O. G. Salli

The Pitch:

L-Word exes Shane McCutcheon and Carmen Morales team up to solve Jenny Schecter’s murder and get Alice Pieszecki out of prison. They find three more murders before it’s over.

This is my novel, **Who Killed Jenny Schecter?** turned into a screenplay for a miniseries of 13 one-hour episodes. **Who Killed Jenny Schecter?** contains only one new, major character fans of the L-Word series won’t know: Detective Lauren Hancock. I wrote the novel and the screenplay with Jessica Biel very firmly fixed in my mind. if that helps you. There are some other new characters, but you can get them from Central Casting. You know all the other majors actors: Sarah, Kate, Alisha, Jennifer, Lauren, Mia, Pam, Rachael, Daniela, the other Kate (French), Rose, Erin, Brian, Malaya, and Lucy.

First, the ad campaign:

Who killed Jenny?

The ending you wanted.

The ending you needed.

The ending you deserved.

The ending you expected.

The ending you never got.

Until now.

Who killed Jenny Schecter?

FADE IN ON

INT. SAN FRANCISCO GENERAL HOSPITAL – NIGHT

Establishing shots of the hospital. It is quiet; only a few people on duty, doing paperwork. An intern studies her med textbook. A nurse at a station chats on the phone to her boyfriend. Monitors beep, patients sleep. A clock shows 12:43 a.m.

INT. THE ER DOCTORS’ LOUNGE – NIGHT

Two DOCTORS in scrubs, a man and a woman, slouch in chairs, watching with zombie-like focus a TV rerun of Grey's Anatomy, the episode where Meredith is in the operating room holding in her hand an unexploded bazooka shell inside a patient, and Kyle Chandler is the bomb squad technician talking her through the procedure. It is near the end of the show.

There is a wall phone near the male doctor's shoulder, within reach. A THIRD DOCTOR lies on a couch with his back to the other two. He is presumably asleep. A FOURTH DOCTOR enters, gets a bottle of juice from a small refrigerator, opens it and drinks, watching the TV.

FOURTH DOCTOR

Which one is this?

FEMALE DOCTOR

The one where Meredith is in the OR, and there's a guy with a bazooka round inside of him. She's got it in her hand. Kyle Chandler's the bomb tech.

FOURTH DOCTOR

Who's Kyle Chandler again?

FIRST DOCTOR

Football coach on _Friday Night Lights_.

FOURTH DOCTOR

Right, right.

FEMALE DOCTOR

And Dr. Bailey's having her baby. George is her coach.

EXT. THE CRIME SCENE (PARKING AREA BEHIND YOUNTVILLE SPECIALTY TRUCKING) – NIGHT

Unlike the quiet hospital, this is chaos. Police cars and ambulances are parked, lights flashing, police and EMTs rushing around. In the background a medevac chopper comes in to land. People are shouting directions and one of the EMT trucks is backed up, doors open and ready to receive an injured person. It is the parking area behind a large Butler building near Yountville, in Napa Valley. If it matters, the name of the trucking company can be Yountville Specialty Trucking, which ships cases of wine throughout California.

Paramedics and EMTs hurriedly push a gurney with an injured person on it, and police escort them to the medevac chopper, where the stretcher is loaded aboard. The chopper takes off and another one lands immediately. Another team of paramedics take a second person to the chopper. We cannot see who it is, but it is SHANE McCUTCHEON, badly injured with a terrible, bloody head injury. Following closely behind is CARMEN MORALES, escorted by police, detectives and EMTs. Her clothes are bloody, and she is unhurt but looks a mess. The police help her into the medevac with SHANE. That chopper takes off.

INT. THE DOCTORS’ LOUNGE – NIGHT

The FOURTH DOCTOR turns and leaves the room. The male and female DOCTORS watch the TV, which we can hear dimly.

FIRST DOCTOR

(laconically)

Dammit, we're losing him. Push one of epi.

On the TV screen we hear/see McDreamy say, “Dammit, we're losing him. Push one of epi.”

EXT. THE CRIME SCENE – NIGHT

A third chopper sits down as another gurney with a body, accompanied by paramedics with hanging plasma bags, etc., is loaded aboard. The cops begin putting out crime scene yellow tape around the parking lot. Crime scene people find three spent shells and a bloodied baseball bat. There is a Kia Sorrento in the middle of the parking area between the line of parked trucks and the loading dock of the Butler building. The doors of the Sorrento are open, and police and CSI people are working on it.

INT. THE DOCTORS’ LOUNGE – NIGHT

Still watching Grey's Anatomy.

FEMALE DOCTOR

(laconically)

O'Malley, stop looking at my va-jay-jay.

On the TV screen we hear/see Dr. Bailey say, “George?” George says, “Yes?” Dr. Bailey says, “Stop looking at my va-jay-jay.”

INT. THE HOSPITAL, A NURSE'S STATION – NIGHT

A phone rings and one of the two NURSES answers.

FIRST NURSE

OR, this is Larkins. (She listens.) Got it. Four minutes out. (She hangs up and turns to the other nurse.) Three bad ones incoming. Two gunshots and a head trauma. Let's scramble everybody.

INT. THE DOCTORS’ LOUNGE – NIGHT

The phone rings, and FIRST DOCTOR answers it without turning his eyes from the screen. We see Grey hand the bazooka round to Kyle Chandler.

FIRST DOCTOR

Yeah? (Listens.) How bad's the head trauma? (Listens.) Okay, get Hopkinson and his team in, stat. We'll take the two gunshots, and stabilize the head trauma until he gets here. (Hangs up.) Let's go, guys.

FEMALE DOCTOR

Gangbangers?

FIRST DOCTOR

No. Some kind of domestic up in wine country, all critical. We could lose all of them.

He and the FEMALE DOCTOR hurry out. On the TV screen we see Kyle Chandler walking slowly down the hall with the bazooka round. Grey comes out into the hall. On the couch the THIRD DOCTOR rolls over and sits up, and is blearily watching the TV just as the round explodes, killing Chandler and sending Grey down the hall on her back from the blast wave.

THIRD DOCTOR

Oh, fuck! (He leaves without turning the TV off.)

INT. AND EXT. INTERCUT THE HOSPITAL, THE HELICOPTER LANDING PAD, THE ER DOORS AND CORRIDOR, AND OPERATING ROOMS – NIGHT.

A montage of the first medevac chopper landing, offloading a patient, medical staff hooking up IVs, intubating, etc. We never see any faces of the three injured people, nor anything else to identify them, even by gender. We see blood, we see gore, we may even see the wounds, close-up. But we don't know who these people are. There is a lot of the usual medical cross-talk, such as:

— You're in OR 2. Hopkinson's on the way.

— Pulse 54 and thready. BP 70 over 55.

— Type and cross-match.

— The second chopper's on the roof now. They'll be down in a second.

— Right. Put ‘em in OR 3. Where's the third chopper?

— About four minutes out.

— Okay, they'll go in 4.

— Somebody's in 4.

— Shit. Okay, 5, then.

A second chopper bringing SHANE lands, medical staff push her gurney through the doors and down the corridor. There are doctors, nurses and techs, a lot of shouting and orders being called out, the usual controlled chaos. CARMEN comes through the doors, accompanied by several cops. A third chopper lands and a third patient is removed and rushed to an operating room.

CARMEN stands at an OR door, looking in. She is bloody, but it isn't her blood. She looks like hell, but she's unhurt.

Inside the operating rooms, staff are hooking things up and orders are being shouted back and forth. Monitors suddenly come to life as they are hooked up and turned on, and squiggly lines and beeps start up.

HOPKINSON, the chief neurosurgeon, and several of his team arrive, squeeze past CARMEN and start dealing with SHANE, the head trauma case. But we still don’t know it’s SHANE.

OR SUPERVISING NURSE

(to CARMEN)

Honey, are you all right? You can't go in there.

CARMEN

I'm ... I'm her ...

OR SUPERVISING NURSE

She's in good hands. Come on, you're all bloody. Are you hurt? We've got to check you out.

CARMEN

No. I'm okay, I've got to— (Clearly she's in a kind of shock.)

OR SUPERVISING NURSE

Come with me, dear. We've got to check you out and get you cleaned up.

She leads CARMEN down the hall.

INT. THE DOCTORS’ LOUNGE – NIGHT

The TV is still on. The song “Chasing Cars” can be heard faintly and on the screen Yang and Izzie have Grey in the shower and are cleaning the blood and bomb debris off her.  
The OR NURSE has a wet cloth and is trying to clean a blood smear from CARMEN's face.

OR SUPERVISING NURSE

Let's get this shirt off you, it's covered in blood.

CARMEN looks down at herself, realizing the polo shirt is ruined and beyond saving. She pulls it over her head and the nurse tosses it into a bin. CARMEN is wearing a black bra.

OR SUPERVISING NURSE

The jeans, too. I'll get you some scrubs.

As CARMEN skins off her bloody jeans the nurse retrieves a set of scrubs from a locker and helps CARMEN put them on.

OR SUPERVISING NURSE

There, that's better.

INT. HOSPITAL OPERATING ROOMS – NIGHT

Shots inside the three OR rooms, with doctors working, instruments being passed, monitors beeping, conversation, etc. A lot of blood. We still don't know who is who among the three casualties.

INT. THE HOSPITAL WAITING ROOM – NIGHT

CARMEN sits alone on a couch against a cinderblock wall, exhausted. (The wall type becomes important later.)

INT. HOSPITAL OPERATING ROOMS – NIGHT

More shots inside the three OR rooms, with doctors working. In one of the rooms things are going south.

TECH

BP's falling.

FIRST DOCTOR

Goddammit. (To patient on table.) Come on, come on, stay with me, stay with me.

The monitor goes flatline.

TECH

Coding.

FIRST DOCTOR

Get the paddles. Clear!

They get the paddles and attempt to shock the patient, who twitches, but the heart doesn't start. They shock the patient again.

FIRST DOCTOR

Clear!

INT. THE HOSPITAL WAITING ROOM – NIGHT

CARMEN sits, her eyes closed, asleep. She starts, then lies down on the couch and falls asleep. A nurse comes by and puts a blanket over her.

INT. HOSPITAL OPERATING ROOM – NIGHT

The doctors and nurses stand around the table of the patient who went south. The monitor is flatlined. The FIRST DOCTOR lowers his mask, as others do the same.

FIRST DOCTOR

I'm calling it. Time of death (glances at wall clock). One oh nine and forty-two seconds, a.m. Uh, I don’t know the name. Victim two, I think. Somebody get the name.

INT. THE HOSPITAL, RECOVERY ROOMS, CORRIDORS, NURSES STATIONS, KITCHEN, WAITING ROOM, ETC. – DAWN.

A montage showing the hospital around dawn, with people coming in to work, chefs in the kitchen making breakfasts, staff beginning to man offices and stations, etc.

INT. THE HOSPITAL WAITING ROOM – MORNING

Two plainclothes DETECTIVES enter the waiting room and stand in front of CARMEN, who wakes and sits up.

DETECTIVE JOHANSON

Miss Morales? I'm Detective Mike Johanson and this is my partner, Detective Larry Wilcox. We're from the Napa County homicide squad. We've been assigned to this case, and would like to talk to you.

CARMEN

Please, sit down.

DETECTIVE JOHANSON

Pretty tough night. Are you okay?

CARMEN

(shrugs)

Exhausted. Worried. Scared.

DETECTIVE JOHANSON

Were you hurt?

CARMEN

Roughed up a little, nothing serious.

DETECTIVE JOHANSON

How's Shane?

CARMEN

I don’t know. Nobody’s told me anything yet.

DETECTIVE JOHANSON

Let's keep a good thought. We know you've talked to a lot of police already last night, but we're coming into it fresh this morning, and we're now in charge of it. So if you're up to it, can we talk about what happened?

CARMEN

Wow. That's a lot of territory. Where do you want me to begin?

DETECTIVE JOHANSON

Why don't we start at the beginning.

CARMEN

The beginning? Right. Okay. Well, I guess we need to go back a few weeks ...

DISSOLVE TO

INT. HUMBOLDT STATE PRISON FOR WOMEN, A WAITING ROOM, CORRIDORS, AND THE VISITATION ROOM – DAY

The dissolve opens on SHANE, sitting against a cinderblock wall much as CARMEN was a moment ago. She is sitting on a bench in a drab waiting. She is bored. We cannot tell if she is a prison inmate or a visitor. After a moment we hear a heavy door being unlocked, and a corrections officer named MARK PERRY opens the door and sticks his head in. He is wearing a name badge with Perry, Mark on it.

C.O. PERRY

(reading name from clipboard)

McCutcheon!

SHANE gets up and he gestures her through the door. She follows him down corridors containing locked checkpoints that he needs to unlock. Eventually they come to the visitation room, which contains cubicles in the middle of a large room, with each divided in half by a wall of glass, prisoners on one side, visitors on the other. At the far end a middle-aged woman is visiting a young woman who might be her daughter. We still don't know who is the prisoner and who is the visitor.

C.O. PERRY

Take a seat.

SHANE sits in a cubicle and waits. After a minute, a door on the opposite side is unlocked and a corrections officer enters, followed by ALICE PIESZECKI. She is wearing an orange prison jumpsuit. There is a white patch stitched over the left breast that says Humboldt State Farm and Women's Prison, and below it in much larger letters her prisoner number, 92530. ALICE walks to her side of the partition opposite SHANE, sits down in the chair, picks up the telephone, and bursts into tears. The phone falls to the table top. ALICE holds her hands over her face, crying silently, her shoulders shaking.

SHANE

Alice, Alice. Hey, come on, Alice.

SHANE holds the phone to her ear, waiting. She puts her free hand up to the glass, palm pressed against it, wanting ALICE to do the same. ALICE pulls herself together. She mops her face, half smiling through the tears. When she is able, she holds her palm up to the glass against SHANE's, and picks up the phone.

ALICE

Hey.

SHANE

Hey.

ALICE

Ya know, in all this time, all these months, this is the very first time I lost it.

SHANE

It's okay. You don't have to apologize.

ALICE

I know. I wasn't apologizing. I was just ... you know ... just saying.

SHANE

I know. We've all been worried about you. Everybody said to say hello, and that they all love you.

ALICE

(smiles)

Tell them all I said “Hey.”

SHANE

I will. Is there anything you need? Anything at all? Just name it.

ALICE

I guess some clothes. Socks and sweatshirts and stuff. There's a list they give you. A cake with a file in it.

SHANE

I'll get the list.

ALICE

Cigarettes. They use them as money in here.

SHANE

Okay.

ALICE

Hey, you haven't complimented me on my outfit. I wore it just for you.

SHANE

It's fab, Alice. It was the first thing I noticed about you. I think the color does wonders for you.

ALICE

You don't think it's a little brash?

SHANE

Well, maybe a little over the top, yes. But the shape and fit are just, well, really hard to describe.

ALICE

I think baggy, shapeless and unflattering say it all.

SHANE

I can't disagree.

ALICE

But it's comfortable. You can lounge around in it all day. And you don't need to change for dinner.

SHANE

No, I guess not. How bad's the food?

ALICE

It's tolerable. I don't think managing my weight is going to be an issue.

SHANE

No.

ALICE

(sighing deeply)

Oh, Shane.

SHANE

I'm so sorry. We were all so shocked. We couldn't believe it.

ALICE

So what's the consensus?

SHANE

Half of us think you're simply delusional. The other half of us think you're covering up for somebody, but we don't know who or why. Nobody thinks you did it. Not one. I mean, there's not even anybody who says, Well, maybe, under the right circumstances.

ALICE

They're all sweet. So what did you say?

SHANE

When I heard you confessed I was just, like ... I dunno. Stunned. It made no sense.

ALICE

Who told you?

SHANE

What's-her-name, the sergeant. The one in charge.

ALICE

Marybeth Duffy.

SHANE

Yeah, her. And she seemed really pissed.

ALICE

(laughs to herself.)

Yeah, I guess so.

SHANE

Why is that funny?

ALICE

Well— (she looks around the room as if to see if anyone is listening) – of course she was pissed. I threw her entire investigation into the dumper. Everything came to a halt.

SHANE  
(frowning)

I don't get it.

ALICE

(sitting back with a sly look)

C'mon, Shane.

SHANE

C'mon what?

ALICE

Yeah, okay, whatever. I get it.

SHANE

Alice, I have no idea what we're talking about. I swear to God. Help me out here.

ALICE

(looks at her hands, playing with her fingers)

You know. Who killed Jenny. That's what I mean.

SHANE

You know who killed Jenny?

ALICE

Shane, c'mon.

SHANE

I swear I have no fucking idea what you're saying.

ALICE

Shane, it's okay. I confessed. I was convicted. It's okay, okay? We're cool.

SHANE

Are you saying you really did kill her?

ALICE

Shaaaaaaane! No, you idiot! Of course I didn't! Christ! You of all people KNOW I didn't kill her! That's what I'm saying!

SHANE

I don't KNOW what you're saying!

ALICE

Shane, it's okay, I'm never gonna rat you out, you don't—

SHANE

Rat me out? Alice, what the fuck are you talking about? You think I killed her?

ALICE

Shhhhh, be careful. Somebody's probably monitoring us.

SHANE

Alice! I don't give a fuck who's monitoring anything! What are you saying? You think I killed Jenny and then you confessed to cover up for me? Jesus fuck!

  
SHANE jumps up from her chair and walked in a circle around the room, pulling at her hair in frustration. She runs back to the chair and grabs up the phone.

SHANE

Alice—

ALICE

Shane! Jeez, don't go crazy, they'll come in here and throw you out or lock you up! We're in a fucking prison, Shane!

SHANE

I know where the fuck we are, Alice.

She puts her forehead in her left hand like she has the world's worst migraine.

SHANE

Alice, I swear to you I didn't kill Jenny. Yes, I was pissed at her, and yes, I wanted to strangle her, the thieving, lying, conniving little bitch. And yes, if she'd walked into Bette's living room right then I might well have strangled her with my bare hands. But we were ALL pissed at her, even you. All of us wanted to throttle her that particular night. But I swear to you ...

ALICE has a new look on her face, the sudden realization that she had confessed to shield SHANE — who hadn't done it.

SHANE looks up and sees ALICE's face on the other side of the glass.

SHANE

No ... Alice ... no ... Alice, please tell me you didn't confess to help me because you thought I did it. (The look on Alice's face is the answer.) I don't fucking believe it.

ALICE makes an Alice face, funny and d'oh! and mock exasperated.

SHANE

You were willing to go to jail for me? To be convicted of Jenny's murder and spend your life in some prison ... just to protect me?

ALICE

Well ... yeah ... Ya know, I figured ...

SHANE

Figured what?

ALICE

I figured, that, uh, you did it, and that if they pinned it on you, they'd convict you ... you know, ‘cause you were guilty, and all ... and then they'd send you to jail, and  
I didn't think you could handle that, that prison would eat you alive.

SHANE

Why would it eat me alive?

ALICE

What, are you kidding? Shane, you wouldn't last 48 hours in here.

SHANE

I wouldn't?

ALICE

Shit no! Shane, you're too much a free spirit, a free, wild, untamed ... ummm ... some kind of bird, maybe. Anyway, you'd go nuts in here. Some bulldyke would make you her bitch, and, well, frankly, I don't see you surviving as somebody's bitch, ya know? You'd get all uppity in her face, ya know how you are, and then she'd have to kill you, and you'd be dead, and I didn't want you to get shanked by some angry dyke just because you wouldn't be her bitch.

SHANE is dumbfounded. She looks at Alice, shaking her head. Alice makes another face.

ALICE

Shane, you like to come off as all tough and street-smart and don't mess with my shit and all, but everybody who knows you ...

SHANE

Knows me what?

ALICE

(pause)

Knows that inside ... you're pretty vulnerable, and, you know, hurt, and gentle, and not mean-spirited, and forgiving, and, and ... oh, fuck, Shane, you're too nice. You're too soft inside. You got all that stuff in your head, and it takes you forever to process stuff, like you always admit, and in here ya gotta be tough and quick and think fast on your feet ‘cause this is a dangerous place. And it would eat you up and spit you out.

SHANE

Alice, that's the craziest thing I ever heard.

ALICE

Yeah, well.

SHANE

But thank you. Thank you for wanting to save my life. I don't think anyone's ever done anything like that for me before.

ALICE  
(shrugs, looks down)

We go back a long way. We go all the way back to Harvey's funeral. And anyway, that was just the one thing. (Pause) Umm ... I thought ... maybe ... you know ... if I confessed to killing Jenny ... then maybe ...

SHANE

Maybe what? Jesus, Alice, just tell me!

ALICE

That you'd come forward and confess. That you would finally see how important this was, and that ... uh ... you couldn't let me, your best friend, take the fall for you.

SHANE

But ... but ... but ... I didn't kill her! So why would I come forth and confess to something I didn't do?

ALICE

(making yet another exasperated D'oh! face)

Well, yeah, NOW that's a good question, but back then, a few months ago, it seemed ... um ...

SHANE

Back when you thought I did it.

ALICE

Well ... yeah.

SHANE sits back in the chair and arches head back, looking up at the ceiling.

SHANE

I don't believe this.

ALICE

And then, after you stood up and said, “No, she didn't do it, I did it, I killed Jenny,” then maybe Tina would stand up and say, “No, they didn't kill Jenny, I killed Jenny.” Because Tina was really, really pissed at her, too. And then Bette would stand up to protect Tina, and say, “No, Tina didn't kill Jenny, I did.” And then around the room, Helena, and Kit, until everybody had given them a confession. Like in Spartacus.

SHANE

Spartacus? What the fuck are you talking about?

ALICE

Didn't you ever see Spartacus? The movie? Kirk Douglas? And the Romans have captured them all and they want to know which one is Spartacus, and Tony Curtis stands up and says, I’m Spartacus! And then another gladiator stands up and says he’s Spartacus, and soon they're all standing up claiming to be Spartacus. They all confess and lie to protect Spartacus.

SHANE cradles her head in her hands.

SHANE

Is there anything more?

Alice looks guilty.

SHANE

Tell me.

ALICE

Well ... I just thought ... you know how I am ... this would be an adventure. Alice Pieszecki goes to the Big House. It would be cool. I could get a radio show and maybe broadcast from prison here. Maybe write a book. Or a movie. I mean, I didn't think I'd be here forever. And that part was right, they only gave me 12 years, and with good behavior I could be out in seven, and my book or movie treatment would be done by then, and there would be all these “Free Alice!” protesters trying to spring me, and a legal defense fund, Lezzies for Justice or something.

SHANE

(looking at her in disbelief)

Oh, Alice.

ALICE

Yeah, I know. I'm pathetic. Well, I am what I am. What's a little martyrdom on my resume?

SHANE

Didn't you tell any of this to your lawyer?

ALICE

Not at first. But just before the trial started, I told him my confession was false, and that I was protecting you.

SHANE

And what did he say?

ALICE

You mean right after he had a cow and a shit-fit and did a major hissy all over me? What did he say? He said we could try to tell that story to the district attorney, and after the DA laughed himself silly we could plead not guilty and get our asses kicked and instead of 12 years I could get life instead. So, long story short, I was pretty much stuck with my own fake confession, and we could try to plea bargain it down as low as we could. So that's what we did. And here I am.

SHANE

Alice, we gotta get you out of here.

ALICE

They don’t like it when you try to break people out of jail in this state, Shane. California’s funny like that.

SHANE

I mean it, we gotta get you out. But the only way is to catch the real murderer….

ALICE

Oh. Like O. J. Well, yeah, there is that. I guess Jenny's murderer is still out there. How you gonna catch her? Him. Her-him. Them. How you gonna prove it?

SHANE

I haven't figured that out yet. And there's another problem. This is the kind of thing I'm really awful at. Interviewing people. Solving puzzles. Analyzing stuff. Alice, I'm a hairdresser.

ALICE

You need somebody to help you. Who's the smartest person you know?

SHANE

Mollie. She’s in Washington clerking for RBG.

ALICE

She’d be good, but no chance. Who else?

SHANE

Bette.

ALICE

Yeah. But she's a suspect, and she’s in New York. And if it was Tina who killed Jenny, Bette won't help you there, either. Who's the third smartest?

SHANE

Tina.

ALICE

Oh. Yeah. That's probably right. And same problem again. Who else is left?

SHANE

Helena. Kit. The cops questioned Nikki, because she was there. But there's no way I'm asking Nikki Stevens to help. Anyway, I think she’s in rehab. I mean, fuck. So there's just you and me, Alice.

ALICE

I love Helena and Kit, I do. But rocket scientists they’re not. Nikki can’t even spell rocket or scientist. No. But there is someone else. Someone we both know and trust, and who is smart, and articulate, and knows how to research stuff. Someone's who's quick-witted and can think on her feet. And who has an iron-clad alibi and wasn't there that night.

SHANE

I have no idea who you're talking about. Joyce Wishnia? Molly? Phyllis?

ALICE

No! Come on, Shane! Not only is this person smart and articulate, but she also is motivated, because she loves us and would do almost anything for us if we asked.

SHANE looks at Alice blankly.

ALICE

Shane!

SHANE

Alice! I have no clue! Who?

ALICE  
(sighing)

Oh, Shane. Sometimes I'm amazed at how your mind works. How quickly and completely you can blank out the past.

SHANE

Alice, stop playing mind-fuck games. Just tell me.

ALICE

Carmen.

SHANE

Carmen! Alice, she hates me! She wouldn't piss on my shoes if my feet were on fire. And she *likes* pissing on people.

ALICE

Shane, she doesn't hate me. She likes me. She and I are friends. And water sports isn’t the same thing as pissing on your shoes. Carmen and I have been friends for years.

SHANE

You are?

ALICE

Yes. You didn't know. But we kept in touch after she moved away after the disaster in Whistler. Remember, all of us weren't just your friends, we became her friends, too. And you're the one fucked up, not her. She and I e-mailed, we talked on the phone. I went up to San Francisco a couple of times and visited her. And you remember that time I went on that Alaskan cruise? You know who was on that cruise ship?

SHANE

She ... did you ... uh ...

ALICE

No, we didn't! Jeez, Shane. I have friends I don't fuck, just like you. You and I have never done it. And anyway I think she's got somebody.

SHANE

She does?

ALICE

She was seeing somebody, but she wouldn’t tell me about it. I think it was off-again, on-again, there were problems. But no, she isn't some celibate ice queen pining away in San Francisco, where there are more lesbians per square mile than any other place on earth and who are probably lined up twenty-seven deep to get into Carmen’s booty shorts.

SHANE puts her head down on the countertop again, the phone still held to her ear.

ALICE

Shane?

SHANE

Yes?

ALICE

Shane, there's something else. That eight or nine months when you were with Carmen? That was the happiest time in your whole life ever since I've known you. You and Carmen complemented each other, like two halves of a puzzle. Like, you know, that Yin and Yang symbol, how it fits together perfectly?

SHANE

That symbol always made me think of 69.

ALICE

Well, so did Carmen. Anyway, you've always had this incredible radar about people, what they were thinking and feeling. You read people better than anybody I knew, and you calm them down and understand them and get them to talk. Carmen’s bright and articulate and smart, and ambitious and has this incredible work ethic. When she puts her mind to something nothing can stop her. You and Carmen together would be one hell of a team.

SHANE

Alice, of all the crazy-ass shit you've said today, that's by far the craziest thing yet. Me and Carmen. You know what would happen if I went to San Francisco and knocked on her door?

ALICE

She'd stab you to death with a dull pair of scissors. But after she calmed down, you know, she might do it. She'd do it for me.

SHANE

Sure, but without me. I'd be the deal-breaker.

ALICE

I’ll talk to her. (Pause.) Anyway, it's about more than just getting me out of here. It's also about finding Jenny's killer.

The door behind SHANE opens and C.O. PERRY sticks his head in.

C.O. PERRY  
Time's up.

EXT. THE PACIFIC OCEAN – ONE SECOND BEFORE SUNSET  
The sun is a huge orange ball sitting on the far horizon line over the ocean, just at sunset. The camera lingers for a few seconds so we see it actually start to drop and flatten at the bottom. There is the SOUND (V.O.) of a San Francisco CABLE CAR BELL.  
DISSOLVE TO

EXT. THE POWELL STREET CABLE CAR STOP AT CHESTNUT STREET – SUNSET  
The cable car arrives at Powell and Chestnut streets; SHANE steps off and walks to the curb with a duffel bag over her shoulder. She drops the duffel and turns and looks west into the flaming orange-red sunset. There are establishing shots of the view from there, Fisherman's Wharf, Alcatraz, Angel Island, the Bay Bridge, etc. She reaches into a pocket and pulls out a a page downloaded from MapQuest, giving her directions. She orients herself to the directions, hoists the duffel back on her shoulder, and with a sigh heads east on Chestnut Street.

EXT. A ROW HOUSE ON CHESTNUT STREET – SUNSET  
SHANE walks three blocks then stands in front of a large row house. There are lights on inside and it gives a warm glow. SHANE checks her map, but knows this is the right place.

SHANE

(to herself)

Here goes nothing.

She walks up several steps to the door and rings the bell. After a moment the door opens and TERRI is standing there. She is a woman in her mid to late 30s, wearing an exercise outfit. She is well cut and muscled, and just the slightest bit mannish. She is sweaty and has been exercising. She blocks the door carefully.

TERRI

Yes?

SHANE

Hi, I’m Shane McCutch—

TERRI

I know who you are. What do you want?

SHANE

Uh, have we met?

TERRI

No. But I've seen photographs of you.

SHANE

Uh, er, I wanted to … um … is Carmen Morales here?

TERRI

She lives here. What is it you want?

SHANE

To talk to her.

TERRI

What about?

SHANE

If she’s not home, I can come back later.

TERRI

She’s home, but you haven’t told me what it is you want to talk to her about.

SHANE

Can’t it be just between me and her?

TERRI

No, it can’t. There’s nothing between you and her.

It’s like a punch in the gut, and SHANE involuntarily takes a step back.

SHANE

It’s not about me and her. It’s about our friend Alice. She’s in a lot of trouble.

TERRI

We know about Alice.

SHANE

I just came from visiting Alice up at Humboldt. Alice is in prison for something she didn’t do. She didn’t kill Jenny.

TERRI

That’s what Carmen said, too. She said no way it was Alice.

SHANE

Well, then, can I talk to her about it? Or at least can she come to the door?

CARMEN'S VOICE  
(V.O. from inside the house)

It’s okay, Terri. Let her in.

INT. THE LIVING ROOM OF CARMEN'S HOUSE – NIGHT

CARMEN stands in living room just off the foyer, her arms folded in front of her. She is wearing khaki Dockers and a dark blue polo shirt with the name of a cruise ship embroidered on the breast. Her hair is pulled back in a ponytail. She looks at SHANE in the hallway and at the duffel bag on her shoulder.

CARMEN

Did you just get into town?

SHANE

Uh, yeah.

CARMEN

Are you hungry? You look hungry.

SHANE

Uh, no, I'm okay.

CARMEN

(sighing)

Shane, I know you're hungry. And you know you could never lie to me, so don't even try.

SHANE

(blushing)

I wasn't trying to lie. I just ...

CARMEN

I know. You just didn't know how to respond.

CARMEN walks to a closet at the side of the room and retrieves a jacket she puts on.

CARMEN

C'mon, you want some pizza?

SHANE

You're not gonna throw it at me, are you?

CARMEN laughs a deep, hearty laugh.

CARMEN

No, I'm not gonna throw it at you.

SHANE

Where are we going?

CARMEN

There's three really good pizza place, and Italian restaurants right near here on Grant and Kearney streets, just up Stockton. It's a wonder I don't weigh three hundred pounds. I like Vito’s best. I just got home myself a little while ago, and I haven't had any dinner, so I'm hungry, too.

SHANE

Doesn't Vito's deliver?

CARMEN

They do, but I feel like a walk. And they have a liquor license, so we can get a beer. They carry Dos Equis. You can leave your duffel here. (Calling up the stairwell to the second floor.) Terri, we're going to Vito's. You want anything?

We hear TERRI walk down the hall and come halfway down the stairs.

TERRI

No, Babe, I'm good. Thanks for asking. (She is checking to make sure CARMEN is safe with SHANE. There are unspoken glances between TERRI and CARMEN. Then she goes back upstairs.) Okay, Sweetie, don't stay out too late.

CARMEN

(calling back)

Yes, Mommy.

V.O. we hear TERRI hoot a laugh.

EXT. CHESTNUT STREET, THE WALK TO VITO'S PIZZA SHOP – NIGHT

SHANE and CARMEN come through the front door and down the steps to the sidewalk.

SHANE

She's pretty protective. (They turn south onto Stockton.)

CARMEN

Yes, she is.

SHANE

Uh, are you—

CARMEN

No, we're not.

SHANE

Sorry. She called you Babe.

CARMEN

That's just her thing. She calls me Babe, Honey, Sweetie Pie, Sweet Cheeks, Toots, pretty much whatever comes into her head. And not just me. She does it to everybody. It saves her from having to remember people's names.

SHANE

I get it. I had just heard you were seeing someone.

CARMEN

Don't believe everything you hear.

SHANE

(awkward pause.)

They told me you were seeing a schoolteacher.

CARMEN

I was. Maybe I still am, I don't know.

SHANE

I'm sorry. I hope it works out. Problems?

CARMEN  
(grunts)

Problems? Yeah, we got problems. You're pretty curious.

SHANE

I didn't mean to pry. I just thought ... you know ... sometimes talking helps. And I thought ...

CARMEN

You thought that with your vast experience of womankind, that you might have some insight into the Carmen Morales heart.

SHANE

No. All I thought was ... I could listen.

CARMEN

(softening)

Okay, I'm sorry. The problem might be I’m NOT seeing that schoolteacher. Number one, she's in San Diego, I'm in San Francisco.

SHANE

Okay, that's a big one.

CARMEN

Number two. Schedules. She's a schoolteacher, she works nine months a year, and has summers off, but like a lot of teachers she does stuff in the summer. I work on cruise ships, I'm gone eight or nine months, and then I get a month or two off. You'd think my breaks and hers would overlap, but they haven't yet. So we get to see each other maybe three weekends a year. Number three. She's still in the closet, and won't come out. She lives at home, won't tell her parents, who would flip out and go ballistic. Strict military family, no dykes allowed. Won’t tell her friends, either. Everybody trying to fix her up with dates she doesn’t want, like my mom tried to do with you. When are you gonna get married and give us grandkids? And she's afraid for her job, afraid the school board would fire her.

SHANE

I thought they can’t.

CARMEN

It doesn't matter what the school board would do, or the law in California. If you're terrified of the school board, you're terrified. She's terrified of coming out, and that's all there is to it. And then there's all the students’ parents, and what they'd think or say.

SHANE

So she's never coming out?

CARMEN

Apparently not.

SHANE

You didn't come out to your mother for a long time.

CARMEN

That was different. I was out, way out, to everybody else, and she was in denial. I was openly living with my lover, if you remember. It didn't affect my ability to have relationships.

SHANE

I remember. By the way, how is your family? You know how much I loved them.

CARMEN

They're fine.

SHANE

I'm guessing it wouldn't be a good idea for me to ask you to tell them I asked after them.

CARMEN

No, it wouldn't.

EXT. VITO'S PIZZA SHOP – NIGHT

They come to the pizza shop, and go in. It is large and modern, and has a large eat-in restaurant section, a lot of glass and stainless steel, and decorated with large neon beer advertisements. All that neon gives the place a blue tinge. It is half full of customers. They are seated by a waitress.

CARMEN

They have really good stromboli here. And they have a lot more than just pizza. They have pretty good lasagna and pasta dishes, too, and pretty good salad.

SHANE

Cool. But I think I'll just stick to pizza.

A WAITRESS arrives.

  
WAITRESS

  
Hi, Carmen. What can I get you ladies tonight?

CARMEN

Hi, Theresa. Shane, you want to split one? The usual?

SHANE

Uh, yeah, the usual.

CARMEN

We’ll split a large, pepperoni, black olives, extra cheese, and two Dos Equis.

WAITRESS  
Coming right up. (She leaves.)

CARMEN folds her arms on the table in front of her, and leans forward slightly. She faces SHANE squarely and looks her in the eyes.

CARMEN

Okay. What's going on?

SHANE

First, before we talk about the thing I came to talk to you about, there's a couple things I'd like to get out of the way first.

CARMEN

Okay.

SHANE

First off, I want to say thank you for even talking to me, even letting me in the door of your house, and, you know ...

CARMEN

For not shooting you dead with a .45 or stabbing you with a pitchfork, or running you down with a truck. That was on my to-do list a couple years ago.

SHANE

Uh, yeah. For that. For ... uh ...

CARMEN

Letting you live, for the time being, anyway. You're welcome. Cross that one off your list. What's next?

SHANE

Mmm. I guess next is the really big one. I want to say how very, truly, sincerely sorry I am about what happened, and how awful I felt and still feel, and how sorry I am that I hurt you. There's ... there's no excuse for what I did, and I know how completely unforgiveable it was.

CARMEN

Yes. It was.

SHANE

I know this is hard for you, but it's hard for me, too. I'm the one fucked up, and I'm the one hurt people, you most of all, and that's just the very last thing I ever wanted to do, was to hurt anybody, but I did, I know it, and if there was anything I could do—

  
CARMEN  
(puts hand on SHANE's forearm to stop her)

Shane, I get it. You're sorry.

SHANE

(Taken aback)

I ... I really mean it, Carmen! I'm not bullshitting—

CARMEN

Shane, you misunderstand me. I know you're sorry. I wasn't being sarcastic. I know you're sorry for what you did and what happened. I've always known it. I even knew it back then. I knew what you did, and why, and how your father swindled ten thousand dollars out of Helena. No one would ever accuse you of wanting to hurt anybody, certainly not me, and certainly not even Jenny. I know the tailspin you went into, how you totally fucked yourself up with drugs and booze in order to forget. Everyone told me. Thank you for the apology, and I accept it, and I've moved on, I really have.

SHANE

I ... I never ... I never thought you'd ever forgive me—

CARMEN

I haven't forgiven you. I anticipate never forgiving you. What I said was, I've moved on. I'm past it, I'm over it. It's history. That's all I'm saying.

SHANE

Oh.

The waitress arrives with their Dos Equis. CARMEN picks hers up and tips it toward SHANE. SHANE, still processing, looks up, picks up her beer, and clinked it against CARMEN's.

CARMEN

Cheers.

SHANE  
Cheers. (They drink.)  
The WAITRESS comes with the pizza and gives them plates. They each take a slice and take bites, blowing out fiercely because the slices were so hot. After a few cooler bites, CARMEN pauses in her chewing.

CARMEN

You ready now?

SHANE

Ready?

CARMEN

Ready to tell me why you're here. Why you came to see me.

SHANE

Oh. Right. I just came from Humboldt. I talked to Alice this morning. She didn't kill Jenny.

CARMEN

I know she didn't.

SHANE

You do? How do you know that?

CARMEN

I know Alice, same as you. You’ve been her friend longer than me, but I know her well enough to know she didn't do it, no matter how mad she was at Jenny. I love Alice, but she’s a total drama queen, and if she’d done it, you’d have heard it a mile away. Yelling, screaming, the whole neighborhood would have heard every word of it. Then she’d have fallen apart afterward, and you’d all have known that, too. She’s the next to the last person on earth who would have composed herself and gone in and sat down with all of you and eaten popcorn while watching a video. A silent, stealthy, clever, sneaky murderer? That’s just not possible, not in this lifetime.

SHANE

No, I guess not.

CARMEN

So what did she say?

SHANE

You’re not gonna believe this.

CARMEN  
(chewing; wipes her mouth with a napkin. Matter-of-factly:)

She said she thought you did it. (Continues to eat.)

  
SHANE  
(Dumbfounded)

How … how did you know?

CARMEN

Lots of people thought you did it. You’re everybody’s number one suspect.

SHANE  
(pause while they eat.)

Did you think I did it?

CARMEN has her mouth full of food, and can’t talk. She keeps chewing, but shakes her head no.

SHANE

  
Why not?

CARMEN  
(when she can talk.)

Three reasons. Remember I said Alice was next to the last person who could have killed her? You’re the last person. First, you don’t have it in you. You couldn’t kill a mosquito. I’ve been told every one of you had some grudge with Jenny that night, all of you were pissed at her. They told me she stole the negatives of that movie and hid it in the attic, and that you found it, and that she messed up your reconciliation with what’s-her-name—

SHANE

Molly.

CARMEN

Right, Molly. But here’s the thing. You’re incapable of rage. Whenever you get angry, even when you have good cause to be pissed as all hell, you turn it all in on yourself. You’re self-destructive, not destructive of someone else. You aren’t just very forgiving, you’re too forgiving. You’d have bent yourself into a pretzel trying to rationalize why Jenny wasn’t to blame, that somehow it was you, not her, who somehow magically made her do whatever she did. That’s one reason.

SHANE  
(warily)

What’s the second reason?

CARMEN

Too slow. You know how long it takes you to process stuff and sort things out. Even if you were sore as hell at her, had a big confrontation, it would have taken you three days to decide to kill her, and another week to work out when and how. Except for sex, you’re not very spontaneous.

SHANE

Maybe it was an accident. Maybe I didn’t mean to kill her.

CARMEN

Yup. That’s where the third reason comes in, same as why Alice didn’t do it. If you had pushed her, and she drowned, you’re still the last person on earth who could go up to the TV room and munch popcorn and watch a goodbye video. If you did it, they’d have found you beside the body crying your eyes out and moaning and weeping and just one sick mess. The whole neighborhood would have heard you sobbing and wailing. And then you’d have run off and done a ton of drugs and booze and you’d have fucked Cheri Peroni blind. But you didn’t do anything like that. Your ability to conceal a murder and act normal for days and weeks afterward is as likely as you giving the pope a blowjob.

SHANE

I was crying and upset, you know.

CARMEN

That’s because you and Bette found Jenny in the pool, and you both jumped in and pulled her out. You were crying and upset because Jenny was dead, she was your lover, and you were grieving. That’s completely normal, and it means you didn’t do it.

CARMEN is finished eating, and wipes her hands on a napkin.

CARMEN

Two pieces left. You want one?

SHANE

No, I’m fine.

CARMEN

I’ll take them home to Terri.

EXT. STOCKTON STREET, CHESTNUT STREET, AND THE WALK BACK FROM VITO'S PIZZA SHOP – NIGHT

SHANE and CARMEN are walking slowly, eating ice cream cones. CARMEN carries a small box of leftover pizza.

CARMEN

So what else did Alice say?

SHANE

She said the only way to get her out was for me to find Jenny’s murderer. She said I’d need help, I couldn’t do it alone, but I could do it if I had the right partner, somebody smart and quick-thinking, logical, good at solving puzzles, somebody articulate to do the talking. She meant you.

CARMEN

She must be really desperate if we’re her only hope.

SHANE

She is. She tried to put on a brave face, but she lost it.

CARMEN

Poor Alice.

SHANE

She said you might not want to do it, because of working with me, that is, and said she’d contact you and talk you into it. She gets her weekly phone call on Saturday.

They arrive back at Carmen’s building and go in.

INT. CARMEN’S HOUSE – NIGHT

CARMEN takes the leftover pizza into the kitchen and when she comes out SHANE is standing near the door with her duffel on her shoulder.

SHANE

It’s getting late. I’ll let you get some sleep.

CARMEN

Where are you going?

SHANE

Uh, I dunno. I’ll find a hotel or something.

CARMEN

Shane, it’s eleven o’clock. You can stay here.

SHANE

Gee, Carmen, I don’t think my sleeping with you is a good idea—

CARMEN  
(angrily)

Shane McCutcheon, have you lost your mind? If you lay one hand on me I’ll punch your lights out. You’re sleeping on the couch here in the living room.

SHANE blushes. CARMEN stands before her, fists clenched on her hips. She relents.

  
CARMEN  
(quietly)

I’ll get you a pillow and a blanket.

She runs up the stairs and returns a moment later and puts a pillow on the end of the sofa, and sits the blanket down next to SHANE, who looks up at her, her forearms across her knees and her hands hanging limp between them.

SHANE

I’m sorry. But see, that’s why I need your help. I just don't know how to say the right things.

CARMEN shakes her head as she regards poor, beaten-puppy-dog SHANE.

  
CARMEN  
(murmurs)

You’re pathetic.

She leans forward and kisses SHANE gently on the forehead. SHANE is dumbfounded.

CARMEN

Good night.

She turns and goes back up the stairs. SHANE watches her go, undresses, lays down on the couch under a blanket, turns off the floor lamp. Outside, she hears the NIGHT  
SOUNDS of San Francisco, and a cable car several blocks away.

SHANE

I know.

INT. CARMEN’S KITCHEN – DAY

CARMEN gets mugs and fills them from a pot of coffee. SHANE dials phone number on her cell.

SHANE

Can I speak to Sgt. Marybeth Duffy, please? (Pause) Oh, she is? Cool. Oh, wait, let me write it down. (Gestures at CARMEN, who hands her a pad of paper and a pencil) Thanks. (hangs up) She's been promoted to lieutenant, and she's in charge of some missing persons unit. (SHANE dials again) Lt. Duffy, please. (Waits) Hi, Lt. Duffy? This is Shane McCutcheon. I don't know if you—

INT. INTERCUT WITH LT. MARYBETH DUFFY’S OFFICE. DAY

MARYBETH

I know who you are. The Jenny Schecter homicide. You were the girlfriend slash roommate. What's on your mind?

SHANE

I have a favor to ask. Do you remember a friend of mine named Carmen Morales? She's here with me right now, up here in San Francisco. We'd both like to come to Los Angeles and talk to you about that case, and about our friend Alice Pieszecki, who I'm sure you remember was convicted.

MARYBETH

What about her? She's up at the Farm, last I heard.

SHANE

Yes, that's right. She didn't kill Jenny. Her confession was false.

MARYBETH

Is that so? Okay, sure. I'll call the governor right away. We'll get her out by dinner time. Gee, look at the time, gotta run—

SHANE

Wait! Please, don't hang up! Please!

MARYBETH

Look, McCutcheon, I'm busy. Stop yanking my chain.

SHANE

Carmen and I want to come talk to you. We understand it's a closed case and all, but we'd like to look at the file. We believe Alice is innocent, and we want to help her. We'll come to your office, or wherever you want to meet. We won't even take up much of your time, if you'll just let us see the file.

There is a long silence on the phone. CARMEN gestures, asking SHANE what was going on. SHANE shrugs.

SHANE

Hello? Lieutenant? Are you still there?

MARYBETH

I'm here.

SHANE

Can we come see you?

MARYBETH

When?

SHANE

Whenever it's convenient for you. We can't come today, since we're up in San Francisco, but tell us when and where, and we'll be there.

MARYBETH

Wednesday at 11, sharp. Just ask for me downstairs in the entrance lobby when you get here.

SHANE

Great, thanks, Lieuten— (Hang-up click)

CARMEN

So?

SHANE

Wednesday at 11 a.m.

CARMEN

Boy, that was easy.

SHANE

I get that vibe, too.

CARMEN

She hung up on you, at the end, there?

SHANE

Uh-huh.

CARMEN

So what do you think?

SHANE

Hell if I know.

EXT. ABOARD THE POWELL STREET CABLE CAR — DAY

The Powell Street cable car crests the hill and then begins the decline down toward Union Square. SHANE looks at CARMEN who is smiling about something.

SHANE

What?

CARMEN

Huh? Oh, nothing.

SHANE

C'mon, what? You always said we don't communicate. So communicate.

CARMEN

Okay, I'll tell you. But remember, I'm smiling now about this, right? I'm smiling.

SHANE

I get it. It's funny now.

CARMEN

Yes. First, I don't have to tell you what the all-time worst day of my life was.

SHANE

I have a fair idea.

CARMEN

Okay, this was the all-time second-worst day of my life. About a year after Whistler, I got back from a cruise, and a couple of friends, Terri and Pat, and I decide to go shopping one Saturday. We come here to Union Square and we shop for a while, we go in a couple places, and then we walk a block south to O'Farrell Street, that's it, right here at the next light, look to the left, halfway down the block. That's where the Hugo Boss Store was—

SHANE

Oh, no.

CARMEN

(Flashbacks can show the following)

Oh, yes. So we go into Hugo Boss. And I see up on the wall, 15 feet tall, this giant tinted color photograph of Shane McCutcheon, the famous fashion model, topless with her hands cupping her tits and wearing nothing but her Hugo Boss low-rider tighty-whities. The caption says, “You're looking very Shane today.” I lost it. I'm standing there crying and sobbing, and Terri and Patty think I've lost my mind. Snot’s running out of my nose, I'm pointing up at the poster on the wall, and all over the store people are looking at this hysterical woman having a meltdown on O'Farrell Street in the Hugo Boss store. I'm pointing at the poster and saying “Shane! Shane! That's Shane!” which is crazy because, yes, it’s Shane, it even says Shane, everybody knows the model’s name is Shane. And then Terri gets it, she goes, “Oh, my God! That's YOUR SHANE?” and I'm shouting at her, “Yes! Yes! That's my Shane!” And everybody in the store is, like, backing away, going to the other side of the store to get away from this lunatic pointing at the poster and blubbering. Patty and Terri take me out of the store, calming me down and blotting my face with tissues, and I'm still crying and babbling, trying to tell them you have your hands over your tits, and you have the most perfect nipples in the whole world, and I'm telling them how awful and humiliated I was when you left me at the altar, which they already knew, and they understand how it's really you, MY SHANE, THAT Shane, up on the poster on the wall of Hugo Boss, and I'm telling them how I loved your nipples, loved kissing them and kissing you, and going down on you and sucking you off right through your tighty-whities, and there's people walking past us on O'Farrell Street looking at the three of us, and I'm babbling about your tits. Terri starts to giggle, because people can hear me rambling on and on about your tits and your underwear, and Patty starts giggling, and then next thing I know I'm laughing, and we just started laughing and howling and whooping, and people on the sidewalk are laughing at us. We calm down, and I say, “C'mon, let's go find a drink.” And Terri says, “Oh, no. This is like horseback riding. You've got to climb back up on that horse. We're going back in, and anyway, I wanna see that poster some more. So, come on, girl, let's go do some aversion therapy and get Shane McCutcheon out of your system once and for all.” We go back in the Hugo Boss store, and we stand there admiring this giant wall poster of you cupping your tits, and I'm fine, I'm not crying or anything, and you know what? Terri buys a three-pack of Shane-type low-rider tight-whities, and I buy a three-pack, and Patty rolls her eyes, and now she's gotta buy a three-pack, and we walk out of the Hugo Boss store with nine pair of Shane-0-Magic low-rider tighty-whities. That was the day I was cured myself of my Shane McCutcheon heeby-jeebies. That was the day I got you out of my system.

SHANE

So that's how Terri knew who I was, the night I knocked on your door.

CARMEN

See? Your detective skills are razor-sharp.

SHANE

And that's why she had the attitude.

CARMEN

Oh, yeah. She knew from the start who you were and what you'd done. At that minute, she might even have been wearing a pair of your Hugo Boss panties, for all I know. She might have been looking very Shane last night. I think you were lucky she didn't come down the stairs and tear you limb from limb. She's pretty protective of me.

SHANE

I noticed. So, anyway, after this hilarious incident, what happened?

CARMEN

When we got home I called Jenny and asked her why there was this giant poster of you in your undies in the Hugo Boss store, and she told me about Carla abandoning Shay and you taking him in, him breaking his arm on a skateboard, you desperate for money to pay his hospital bills, how you got recruited to be a model. She says, “Carmen, that advertisement campaign was in all the newspapers and all over television, didn't you see it? Don't you have newspapers and Entertainment Tonight up there?” And I'm, like, “Jenny, I just got back from a CRUISE! I've been gone for thirteen weeks! I've been to the Galapagos Islands and New Zealand! I've been on a ship, and no, we don't get Entertainment Tonight out west of Wake Island. Jenny told me it was a really big deal, though.

SHANE was still processing this story when they got to the bottom of Powell Street at the last stop and got off.

CARMEN

By the way, those Boss low-riders are pretty comfortable. I bought six more pair. I'm wearing one of them right now, as a matter of fact. That's why I'm looking very Shane today.

INT. LA COUNTY SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT, CORRIDORS, MARYBETH DUFFY’S OFFICE – DAY  
.

SHANE and CARMEN check in at the lobby window and wait while a sheriff’s deputy calls somebody. He clears them to go to the elevator bank. When they got off the elevator an older man is waiting for them. He wears baggy pants with suspenders and a sweater over an old but button-down shirt. He has an ID badge hanging from a lanyard around his neck.

  
OLD MAN GREETER

  
You gals Morales and McCutcheon?

CARMEN

Yes.

OLD MAN GREETER

Follow me. Marybeth’s expecting ya.

He leads them from the elevator lobby to a wide bullpen area where a dozen plainclothes cops were working, typing on computers or talking on their phones. They turned down another aisle, enter a small bullpen area, and off the bullpen the OLD MAN GREETER shows them to an office with glass walls. The sign by its door says Lt. Marybeth Duffy. He taps on the door twice, opens it for SHANE and CARMEN.

  
MARYBETH is talking on a desk phone and gestures them to come in and sit down. She is dressed in plainclothes. She has short dark hair, and carries herself with a regal air of military command.

MARYBETH

Right ... yes, that's a good idea ... work me up some budget numbers ... yes, okay, Frank, thanks. (Hangs up, picks up cellphone and immediately starts inputting something.) Give me one more ... (thumbs more data into the cell without looking up) … second … there.

She finishes, looks up, stands behind her desk, leans forward to shake hands.

MARYBETH

McCutcheon (cold). Good to see you again. You must be Morales (warmer). Nice to meet you. Sit down. What can I do for you?

SHANE and CARMEN look at each other for a split second, and then CARMEN begins their pitch.

CARMEN

We want to talk to you about our friend, Alice Pieszecki. We both believe that she's innocent, that she had nothing to do with Jenny's death—

MARYBETH

Homicide. Second-degree murder.

CARMEN

Yes. Alice didn't do it, even though she confessed to it knowing she'd go to prison. We know it's a closed case as far as the police are concerned, and we understand that. But even so, we believe in her innocence, and we'd like to look at the case files and all the forensic stuff, with a view toward conducting our own investigation. We have a theory that Alice spontaneously decided to confess, which made your investigation suddenly come to a stop, too, which is perfectly natural — we're not criticizing in the least, certainly not criticizing you, personally, or anyone else working on the case. What we think is that Alice's confession derailed and sabotaged your investigation, and that if she hadn't done that you'd have kept working and identified the real murderer.

MARYBETH

You're not a policewoman or a private eye.

CARMEN

No.

MARYBETH

No training at all in any kind of police work or criminal investigation.

CARMEN

None.

MARYBETH

You're a DJ.

CARMEN

Yes. And I work for a travel agency, and work on cruise ships.

MARYBETH

Olivia Travel and Royal Duchess Lines. You're Julie on the Love Boat. I did my homework. You (to SHANE, with a casual flip of her hand), you're still a hairdresser.

SHANE

Yes, I used to be. I don’t do much anymore myself, but I’m a partner in a chain of hairdressing and beauty salons. I do some professional photography on the side, too.

MARYBETH

That's right, I remember now. Schecter bought you a whole photo studio right before she was murdered. Too bad she didn’t put you in her will.

SHANE

Nearly all her estate went to her mother in Illinois.

CARMEN

Look, I know we're not investigators or police. I know we're complete amateurs. But we need to do something. We need to find the real murderer and get Alice out of prison.

MARYBETH

What did Pyewacket say when you visited her up at Humboldt the other day?

SHANE

Who?

MARYBETH

Pieszecki.

SHANE

You know I visited her?

MARYBETH

After you called to make this appointment, I checked. It wasn't rocket science. Why do you think Alice confessed if she was innocent?

SHANE

She was trying to protect somebody she thought did it.

MARYBETH

Who?

SHANE

Me.

MARYBETH

You're saying she thought you killed Schecter.

SHANE

Uh, well, um, yes. I guess so. But I didn't.

MARYBETH

No.

SHANE

No, really, I didn't. Carmen, help me out here.

CARMEN

Shane, I know you didn't do it, but either of us telling Lt. Duffy you’re innocent hardly constitutes evidence.

MARYBETH

Anybody else think you did it, or was Pyewacket the outlier?

CARMEN

Lieutenant, we both know a lot of people had Shane as the primary suspect. And anybody who watches TV knows that the spouse or significant other boyfriend/girlfriend is always the number one suspect in a homicide, and yes, we all know that was Shane. And yes, we all know Shane had more motive than anybody except maybe Tina, because Jenny stole the movie film negatives that belonged to Tina's studio. But we also know Tina didn't do it, and we just have to get past looking at Shane, just like we have to get past Alice confessing and being convicted. And, while I'm at it, quite frankly, we both know you're just pulling our chain now, and we are not trying to pull yours.

MARYBETH

You're not going to let me have any fun at all, are you? (Picks up phone, dials, waits). You freed up? Starsky and Hutch are here. (Hangs up.) Look, there's just no way the LASD is turning over the files and all the accumulated evidence to a pair of complete, total rank amateur outsiders, even if it is a closed case, as you correctly point out. Also, I don’t have the power to re-open a closed murder case, even if it was my case way back when, because this is the Bureau of Missing Persons and I'm not a homicide cop anymore, and the folks who are homicide cops would have my ass on a trash can lid. Simply put, I don't have jurisdiction. Having said all that, there is a Plan B.


	2. Who Killed Jenny Schecter? - The Miniseries Screenplay Part 2

Part 2

Because the full screenplay of this mini-series is 795 pages and can be carved up into one-hour, 90-minute or two-hour episodes, no attempt has been made here to provide chapter endings or transitions, episode recaps from previous episodes, and so on. Each “episode” is simply a continuation of the full, long screenplay in pieces large enough to fit on the Black List site. Each episode here, however, ends at the conclusion of a scene.

**INT. LASD CONFERENCE ROOM -- DAY**

SHANE is sitting at the conference table going through a sheaf of reports and financial statements CHASE had given her to review when CARMEN arrives.

SHANE

How’d the field trip go? Where’s Lauren?

CARMEN

Checking her messages. The trip was … not fun, I guess. But Lauren saw what she needed to see. Have you been back there?

SHANE

No. I couldn’t. I went back just to get my stuff, but I couldn’t go next door to Bette and Tina’s.

LAUREN comes in and goes directly to the white board, where she picks up an eraser, cleans the board, and then writes with a marker, MOTIVE. Under it she writes:

> Shane:
> 
> Max:
> 
> Bette:
> 
> Tina:
> 
> Alice:
> 
> Kit:
> 
> Helena:
> 
> Nikki:
> 
> Adele:
> 
> Tasha:
> 
> Studio/Aaron K/William H:
> 
> Unsubs:

SHANE

Unsubs?

LAUREN

Unknown subjects. A catch-all for people we don’t know about yet.

CARMEN

Who are Aaron K and William H?

LAUREN

Aaron Kornbluth, the head of the studio. William Halsey is a big-shot investor Jenny roped into financing her movie. We can assume he lost money because of the fiasco. So maybe revenge. We’ll have to look at it.

CARMEN

Right. Go ahead.

LAUREN starts filling in the spaces:

> Shane: J hid Molly letter, prevent reconciliation
> 
> Max: J mistreat, cause bf breakup, jilted for Claude
> 
> Bette: J blackmail over Kelli incident
> 
> Tina: J stole negs, cost studio
> 
> Alice: J alleg stole movie treatment, got $.5m
> 
> Kit: J blackmailing sister, believed B innocent
> 
> Helena: J divulged Dylan test, ruined reconciliation
> 
> Nikki: J used/abused/humiliated
> 
> Adele: Usurped J as director. Mental?
> 
> Tasha: ?
> 
> Studio/Aaron K/William H: Believe J stole neg, cost millions plus O costs
> 
> Unsubs: ?

SHANE

What are O costs?

LAUREN

Opportunity costs. If the movie had been shown, the studio might have made millions.

CARMEN

Or lost millions if it flopped. Maybe Nikki did them a big favor, from what I’ve heard.

LAUREN

Maybe, but we have to assume the studio was pissed. (Consults notepad and then writes on the board:)

> Paraphrases:
> 
> Alice: Schecter is so fucking dead
> 
> Helena: I’m going to fucking kill your girlfriend
> 
> Nikki: Jenny Schecter is a liar and user. You not going get away with this. You are dead meat, Schecter
> 
> Tina: Fucking Jenny, I’m going to fucking kill you
> 
> Max: I hate her. Hate these hormones, hate these tits and hips and hate Jenny Schecter
> 
> Bette: My family and life worked hard to rebuild for them means everything to me and there is nothing that I wouldn’t do to preserve or protect them. All I care about is that you [J] know I will not abide anyone who threatens my family.

LAUREN

Can anybody think of any other overt threats to kill Jenny? (SHANE and CARMEN look at each other, then shake their heads.)

CARMEN

That’s a pretty scary list. Dead meat. I’m going to kill you.

LAUREN

Yes, but people say this kind of stuff all the time. Ninety-nine percent of the time it’s just talk.

SHANE

One percent it isn’t.

LAUREN

One percent it isn’t. You two know these women a lot better than I do. I know they’re your long-time friends, but I’m relying on you to give me a good read on these kinds of statements. Who says stuff like this all the time and doesn’t mean it? Who’s the truth-teller, who’s the drama queen? I know the first one you’re going to say is Alice, but she’s the one in jail.

CARMEN

I don’t know Nikki at all, but everything I’ve read and heard about her screams drama queen.

SHANE

Totally.

LAUREN

Would Nikki kill Jenny?

SHANE

No. But she’d get one of her posse to do it.

CARMEN

Seriously?

SHANE (shrugs)

It was kind of a joke. But who knows? This is Hollywood. Stuff no one would believe goes on all the time.

LAUREN

Amen, sister. (Draws dotted line circle around Nikki’s name.) Not saying yes, but not

saying no. What about Helena?

CARMEN

Helena would say I’m going to kill you, but she wouldn’t do it. She could hire somebody, but that’s not her style, either.

SHANE

I agree. Not Helena.

CARMEN

We haven’t talked about Dylan. I don’t know her, and I don’t see any motive. Just bringing up her name.

SHANE

I don’t see it. It was Jenny who tipped Dylan off to the test, which pissed Helena off. But Dylan had no motive.

CARMEN

Okay, back to the list. Not Tina.

SHANE

Nope.

LAUREN

Max?

CARMEN

I have a problem with Max. We had bad chemistry, right from the start. I just didn’t like him, for lots of reasons. The way he treated Jenny, for starters. And Max has a temper. When he was going through his hormone treatments and doing the fundraising for his top surgery he was a fucking lunatic. He was injecting testosterone. Some I saw with my own eyes, some Jenny told me about. They were always fighting and bickering. Even after I moved to San Francisco, Jenny would tell me stuff, or other people would. But see, I don’t want my dislike of Max to color my perceptions. But if you asked me, I’d say yes, Max was certainly capable of rage, and suddenly pushing Jenny off the landing. I don’t think it would have been premeditated, but I could be wrong.

LAUREN

Shane?

SHANE

I agree. Max can fly off the handle. And Carmen’s right. When he was doing the hormone shots and transitioning, he was a lunatic.

LAUREN draws a circle around Max’s name.

LAUREN

So we like Max for it. What about Bette? (Nobody says anything.) Come on, guys.

CARMEN

I love Bette. She’s tough, and she’s smart, and she’d do anything to protect Angelica, and her family, and her relationship with Tina. And God knows, she’s been angry from time to time, but I can’t say she has a temper. She doesn’t internalize, like Shane does, but neither does she blow up, explode. You see smoke coming out her ears when she’s pissed. But I don’t see her spontaneously pushing Jenny. If Bette really did want to kill Jenny, she’d carefully plot it out over weeks or months. She’d have an alibi. And nobody would ever catch her.

SHANE

That’s about right.

LAUREN

What about accidentally? Not intending to kill her, but pushing. And maybe Jenny started it, got in Bette’s face and Bette simply pushed back. She’s bigger and stronger.

CARMEN

In that case, Bette would have walked up to the media room and told the others, “Well, I just killed that bitch,” sat down and burst into tears. But she didn’t.

SHANE nods. LAUREN draws a dotted line circle around Bette’s name.

LAUREN

Not saying yes, but not saying no. Adele. Shane, you knew her.

SHANE

Devious. Evil. About as two-faced as you can get. But I don’t see the motive. She got what she wanted, got Jenny fired off the lot and took her job. Why would she kill Jenny?

LAUREN

Maybe she thought Jenny stole her movie. Everybody else did. Her big breakout debut as director. All that plotting and scheming, down the drain. After the smoke cleared, Aaron demoted her.

CARMEN

Did Adele have an alibi for that night?

LAUREN

Nobody asked, because blah blah blah, don’t make me say it again.

CARMEN

Does it strain credibility to suggest maybe not one but two people were lurking in the bushes behind Bette and Tina’s house?

SHANE

You mean, Nikki and Adele were there together?

LAUREN

Before we dismiss it too fast, let’s think about it for a minute. The police on the scene found Nikki. But maybe Adele got away, or left sooner?

CARMEN

How thoroughly did your guys search the neighborhood?

LAUREN

It’s a good question. I’ll have to ask Marybeth. I assume they did a fairly good job, because they found Nikki. And after that they’d have looked around even more. But we’ll need confirmation. I’ll work on it.

LAUREN goes to a second whiteboard and writes TO-DO LIST and then:.

> 1)Adele contract
> 
> 2)Adele alibi
> 
> 3)Neighborhood search?

LAUREN

Anything else? No?

She moves to a clear space on the board and writes the word MONEY.

LAUREN

The root of all evil. What do we know?

She starts writing:

> 1) J stole A treatment worth 1/2mil, so J had 1/2mil?
> 
> 2) J paid for book deal – how much?
> 
> 3) J paid for screen rights – how much?
> 
> 4) J salary as movie director; piece of action?
> 
> 5) J estate went to ? – how much? Need warrant?
> 
> 6) J bank account 6-12 months
> 
> 7) Studio losses? Need warrant?
> 
> 8)

Then she goes back to the To-Do list and writes:

> 4)Warrant, J bank account/statements
> 
> 5)Warrant, J estate.
> 
> 6)

LAUREN

Anybody know who handled Jenny’s estate?

SHANE

I do. It was my lawyer, Bernie McFadden. Jenny’s mom called me two or three days after … after we found Jenny, and asked me if I knew who handled the estate. I told her I put Jenny in touch with his office two or three years ago, when Jenny started getting some major income from her book and stuff. They did a will for her, I know that, because I inherited the camera equipment and stuff that Jenny bought for me when she got me that photography studio. Most everything she owned was liquidated and went to her mom, that’s what Bernie said. I don’t know what the total amount came to, though. It wasn’t my business.

LAUREN

In round figures, a real wild-ass guess, how much do you think we’re talking about?

SHANE

I don’t know. Couple hundred thousand, maybe. Whenever she got a major check, like for royalties or something, she’d jump up and down and do a dance and carry on, but I never actually saw the amounts. You can ask Carmen, I’m just not that interested in money. Maybe it’s one of my character flaws.

CARMEN

It’s one of your virtues.

SHANE

Oh. Well. Thanks.

LAUREN

All right, we’re talking about substantial amounts of money coming in—

CARMEN

And going out. For a while she was spending it like a sailor on shore leave.

LAUREN

I understand. But it’s still a pile of money, and you don’t need much before people start killing for it. We have to find out how much was coming in and going out. Let me just put this out there: Did Jenny’s parents Know how much money she had? Do we need to look at them?

CARMEN

I don’t think so. One time when she came up to San Francisco I asked her, what are you going to do with all your money, buy a new house for your mom and Warren? And she about spit out her drink. Fuck, no, she says. I hardly tell them anything about what I’m doing or how much money I’m making. Warren can go fuck himself. I’ll take care of my mom, but no way I’m buying anything he gets a share in. He was her step-father, you know, and they never got along. My guess is, they were clueless.

SHANE

I agree. Sometimes I heard Jenny talk on the phone to her mom, like, maybe three times a year, Christmas, Mother’s Day and her mom’s birthday. Her mom called on Jenny’s birthday. And it was always pretty brief and Jenny never said much. One thing I know for certain, she never bragged about her money, to her mom or anybody else.

LAUREN

Okay, we cross them off the suspect list. Everybody agree?

CARMEN

Yes.

SHANE

Yes.

LAUREN moves to her third whiteboard and writes INTERVIEWS.

LAUREN

These are people we need to talk to. (Writes:)

> Bette/Tina
> 
> Max
> 
> Helena
> 
> Kit
> 
> Adele
> 
> Nikki
> 
> Aaron/William
> 
> Alice?
> 
> McFadden
> 
> Kelli
> 
> Bank/Accountant?
> 
> Marybeth/Cops on Scene.

LAUREN

Do we need to talk to Tasha? I don’t know if you guys kept in touch with her, but she’s a beat cop now. Doing good, from what I hear.

CARMEN

I don’t think we need to see if she knows anything, she’d have volunteered it long before now, but I think maybe we owe her an explanation of what we’re doing about Alice. She’s entitled to know. She and Alice were a thing, for a while.

SHANE (to CARMEN)

You know Tasha?

CARMEN

Oh, sure, she and Alice came on a cruise. And they visited me up in San Francisco. We went up to Napa, wine-tasting, together. It was fun. I like her. (To LAUREN) Why did you put Kelli’s name up there?

LAUREN

No good reason I can explain, except call it cop instinct. It’s bothered me from the beginning, that business about Bette cheating on Tina and did something with Kelli, and that Jenny was blackmailing Bette about it. We’ve heard from Kit, Tina and Bette about it, but we haven’t heard Kelli’s side of it. I just want to clear it up, if possible.

CARMEN

Okay. Why a question mark after Alice’s name?

LAUREN

Just being thorough. We’re re-interviewing everybody, right? She’s one of them, that’s all. Shane’s the only one of us who’s actually talked to her, after she went up to Humboldt—

CARMEN

I’ve talked to her.

SHANE

(astonished)

You have? You never told me.

CARMEN

You never asked, and it’s none of your business. I’ve talked to her on the phone half a dozen times, I visited her once when I was home, and I’ve sent her stuff. Clothes and cigarettes and stuff.

SHANE

I had no idea.

CARMEN

You weren’t supposed to. It’s like separation of church and state. I told you, these are my friends, too. You just knew them longer. But we all have this understanding, nobody tells Shane what Carmen’s up to.

SHANE

Okay. I’m brain-dead. Can we knock off for the day?

LAUREN

We can, but I told Duffy I’d check in with her before we quit. You don’t have to, but I’d like it if you came along, checked in, showed your faces.

CARMEN

Okay by me.

SHANE shrugs but makes no move to leave. LAUREN dials her cell phone.

LAUREN

It’s me. You available for an update? Right. (Hangs up.) Caught a break. She’s free right now.

INT. MARYBETH’S OFFICE — DAY

MARYBETH

Well, well, if it isn’t Charlie’s Angels. Which one of you is the smart one?

SHANE (holding up hand)

Not me. I'm the dumb one.

CARMEN

I'm the fashionista.

SHANE

I thought you were the one with the great tits?

CARMEN

That, too, but I'm also the fashionista. (Points at LAUREN.) She's the smart one, she went to the police academy like Charlie’s Angels.

SHANE

They went to the police academy? I never watched the show.

LAUREN

The originals did. I'm not sure about the second team.

CARMEN

I always liked the ones with Cheryl Ladd. I so wanted to do Cheryl Ladd.

SHANE

I'd like to do Lucy Liu.

LAUREN

Oh, me, too.

CARMEN

Maybe you could both do her.

SHANE and LAUREN look at each other, and then turn to Duffy.

SHANE

Works for me.

LAUREN

Yeah, sure, why not?

MARYBETH

Comedians.

SHANE

I thought we were Angels.

CARMEN

Angel comedians. Hey, I got an idea, Lieutenant. You can be the smart one.

MARYBETH

Sucking up, huh? (CARMEN beams.) I'm beginning to like you, Morales. You can be the smart one until further notice. Okay, let's cut the shit. What have you got?

LAUREN

Progress. We have a couple people we’d like to take a closer look at. There’s a lot of legwork I have to do, and we have a bunch of interviews. But first we have a major question for you. On the night of the murder, you were on scene, you were in charge. While you were inside talking to the women, one of the team found Nikki Stevens hiding in the bushes. We were wondering if they found anyone else, or rather, how big a canvass they did after they found Nikki.

MARYBETH

You think there was someone else?

LAUREN

We wonder if it’s possible.

MARYBETH

Okay, I see. When they brought Stevens in, I told them to make sure there was no one else around. So yes, I’d say our search of the neighborhood was thorough, but yes, sure, there could have been someone else who walked away before we got there. That help?

LAUREN

It’s what we figured.

MARYBETH

Who’s your second suspect?

LAUREN

Adele Channing.

MARYBETH

Refresh my memory.

LAUREN

She was Jenny’s assistant, then took over her job as director. She would have been Nikki’s boss after Jenny was fired by the studio.

MARYBETH

Motive?

CARMEN

I’ve got an idea about that. We now know it was Nikki who stole the negatives and hid them in Jenny’s attic, right?

MARYBETH

She confessed to it, yes.

CARMEN

Her motive was to get back at Jenny. But if the negs are never discovered, the revenge is only halfway accomplished. There’s no movie, but Jenny is never caught as the alleged thief. Suppose Nikki tells Adele she thinks that bitch Jenny took the negs, and hey, come with me and we’ll sneak into Jenny’s house and maybe find them there. Because Nikki already knows where they are. She needs Adele as a witness when she quote discovers them unquote.

SHANE

How’d they know we wouldn’t be home?

CARMEN

Easy. Jenny was running around for a week or more, rounding up and filming goodbye messages for Tina and Bette. She’d have asked people at the studio Tina had close ties with. It would have been common knowledge around the studio Tina was moving to New York and Jenny was doing a farewell video.

MARYBETH (to LAUREN)

See? I knew she was going to be the smart Charlie’s Angel.

INT. A CHINESE RESTAURANT NEAR LASD HQ — DAY

LAUREN is in a booth near the back, nursing an iced tea when MARYBETH arrives and sits down.

MARYBETH

Christ, you wouldn't believe my morning. I managed to squeeze in 45 minutes for lunch into my schedule, and that was 20 minutes ago. I fully intend to be half an hour late for my next meeting. Hancock, someday I may need you to remind me why I once wanted to be a cop. I can hardly remember the last time I did any actual police work, or even supervised any. Budget meetings. Personnel meetings. Community relations meetings. Meetings to discuss task forces. Task forces to discuss holding meetings about task forces. I’ve heard rumors my department is supposed to find missing persons, but I tend to discount office gossip like that—

LAUREN

Malcontents. Troublemakers. Taxpayers. Pay no attention.

MARYBETH

Exactly. I live my career vicariously through you. I am sorely tempted to bust myself down to beat cop, citing poor attitude. Who do I have to blow to get an iced tea around here? (Waves at WAITRESS, who fills up iced tea glasses.)

LAUREN

All better now? There was a time I was ambitious, and thought about working my way up the chain of command, getting promoted and moving into admin.

MARYBETH

Don't do it. Go as high as you want, but stay on that side of the wall. Stay on the street. It's more dangerous out where you are, but the side I’m on will suck your soul right out of your brain while you’re sitting on your ass in a swivel chair in a well-lighted, climate-controlled office.

LAUREN

Why do you do it? Could you transfer back onto the street?

MARYBETH

Why do I do it? I'm stuck, that's why. Somebody somewhere talent-spotted me for management. You know how bad they want every kind of minority there is to fly high as they can in the department, anything to demonstrate diversity and all that. The worst part is, I'm good at what I do. And so I got promoted and promoted, and now I'm stuck. And upstairs they all know it. Everybody knows I may make deputy chief someday. Everybody wants that.

LAUREN

Except you?

MARYBETH

I don't know. Some days, yes, some days, no. Some days I just want to get in a squad car and go out and play cops and robbers, like you do.

Their lunches come.

MARYBETH

Where’d you leave Cagney and Lacy?

LAUREN

I gave them the morning off. They’re coming back in this afternoon. I had some work to do on other cases, plus I’ve got paperwork on Schecter. I’m applying for warrants to look at all her finances.

MARYBETH

I had those warrants pending right after the murder, but we never got to use them and they expired.

LAUREN

I know. They’re in the file. I basically cloned them and re-filed.

MARYBETH

Good. So where are we? Is McCutcheon still good for the murder?

LAUREN

I don't know yet. It's way too soon to tell. I know she was our top suspect—

MARYBETH

She wasn't our top suspect, she was our only suspect. We all made her for it right from the start.

LAUREN

I know. That might have been a mistake.

MARYBETH

You don't think she did it?

LAUREN

I'm saying I don't know.

MARYBETH

You said last night you had some other suspects. I didn’t know if you were saying that for their benefit, or what.

LAUREN

I'm trying to keep an open mind.

MARYBETH

But ... ?

LAUREN

Carmen doesn't think Shane did it. Carmen knows her, probably better than anybody else. It isn't that Carmen thinks she didn't do it, or didn’t have motive. Carmen agrees Shane had more and better motive than anyone else in that room. Shane evens agrees. Carmen just thinks Shane isn't capable of it. She made a pretty good point that even if Shane had killed Schecter, she couldn't have covered it up. She’d have been immediately remorseful and shook up.

MARYBETH

Shee-it. A lot of killers go all to pieces right after, but a lot of them don't. Some of them go into immediate denial or shock or whatever the hell it is, and three minutes after the deed they're as innocent as lambs, because that's really what they think. Never underestimate denial.

LAUREN

Yes, I know. And I'm taking that into consideration. And I know what's in the back of your mind, that because I had a thing with Shane ten years ago, that maybe that's affecting my judgment, or something. Maybe I’m cutting her some slack. But I’m not. If anything, it'd probably go the other way, since it was a one-night stand, and she's the one who broke it off after that. So if anything ... oh, shit. Look, here's the thing. McCutcheon is a pretty strange creature. She's not much like anybody you or I know, or ever ran into. She doesn't think like other people, including people who commit murder. She's wired differently than other people, lesbians included.

MARYBETH (has a fork full of fried rice halfway to her mouth, but stops in midair)

Different ... how?

LAUREN

You remember our first impression of her? She’s not the brightest light in the chandelier? We couldn't figure out how she managed to get up in the morning, feed herself, get dressed and go to work. We thought she was the original space cadet.

MARYBETH

Yeah? And?

LAUREN

Carmen says a lot of people think that, but it isn't true.

MARYBETH

Oh, Carmen says that, does she?

LAUREN (frustrated)

Look, Carmen is very smart, and she knows Shane better than anyone. She knew Schecter about as well as anyone. And she was a thousand miles away with a rock-solid alibi and absolutely no motive whatsoever. So yes, I know it bugs you, but Carmen knows her shit. And she's honest, and ...

MARYBETH

Whoa, hold up.

LAUREN

No, don't give me that shit, Marybeth. I know I sound like I have some schoolgirl crush on her, but I know her better than you do, so please give me a little credit here. Morales has all kinds of useful insight, that's all I'm saying, and we'd be fools to ignore it. She’s our best resource on either one of them.

MARYBETH

So you DO have a crush on her.

LAUREN

So what? It doesn't affect my judgment, and it doesn't affect my police work. And nothing is going to happen, not one tiny thing.

MARYBETH

Okay. I just wanted to get it out on the table.

LAUREN

Well, it's out, okay? And it doesn't mean anything.

MARYBETH

Okay.

LAUREN

Okay. Anyway, they're still in love with each other.

Marybeth stops eating again and looks at her.

LAUREN

What?

MARYBETH

They're still in love with each other? After all that crap that went down? Have they—

LAUREN

Shit, no. Yes, they're still in love, and no, they can barely stand to be in the same room with each other. Carmen has never forgiven McCutcheon. She says she never will, and I believe her. Meanwhile, Shane is so out of touch with her own feelings she doesn't even know she's still in love with Carmen.

MARYBETH

Ah, I see. Carmen doesn't know she's still in love with Shane.

LAUREN

No.

MARYBETH

And Shane doesn't know she's still in love with Carmen.

LAUREN

No.

MARYBETH

So the only one who actually thinks they are still in love with each other is you.

LAUREN

Um ... yes, I guess.

Marybeth goes back to eating.

LAUREN

Stressing yet again that I'm keeping an open mind, tell me again why we thought McCutcheon was good for it? Tell me why we still think it.

MARYBETH

Number one is just simple statistics. I'm not saying anything you don't already know.

LAUREN

Sure. Most of the time the killer is somebody close, the spouse or boyfriend or girlfriend.

MARYBETH

Right, the spouse, the significant other, the lover, past, present or future, straight or gay, doesn’t matter, but yes, the people immediately around the vic, the ones with an emotional and usually romantic attachment, even if that attachment has morphed from love to hate. Two sides of the same coin. And that describes McCutcheon. That's first. Second, there were seven of them there that night, plus Schecter, and all seven were pissed at her. But if you evaluate them, we agree McCutcheon had every right to be angriest. She had just discovered earlier that day that her ex-girlfriend, what was her name?

LAUREN

Molly.

MARYBETH

Molly. Right. She just discovered Schecter hid the letter in a coat pocket and stashed the coat in the attic. So right there she's pissed enough to strangle Schecter. I know I would be. And then while she's in the attic she discovers the missing film canisters from the movie. She jumps to the reasonable conclusion that Schecter put them there. McCutcheon doesn’t care about the film itself, but she cares about the lies and deceit Schecter is guilty of, and all the harm she’s caused, especially to her other friend Tina, who was the movie’s producer. So alone of all seven women, only McCutcheon has two really good, really strong reasons to want to throttle the little bitch. You with me so far?

LAUREN

Yes.

MARYBETH

Motive. Method. Opportunity. That’s always our litany. McCutcheon's got them all, in spades. Yes? No?

LAUREN

Yes.

MARYBETH

I gave you two reasons why she's good for it. Now, just to prove I'm not wedded to her as the killer, I'll give you two reasons why she didn't do it. You gave me the first one, that even if she did it she couldn't have carried it off afterward.

LAUREN

And the second?

MARYBETH

Because she's the one initiating this whole new investigation. She's the one who went up to Humboldt and came back all hot and bothered to get Alice out. Now, I grant you the possibility that Shane might have killed Schecter, and feels guilty not about the murder but about Alice being locked up for it. But enough to get the investigation re-opened? Could she pretend to want to find the “real” killer, like O. J. Simpson wanting to find the real killers? That would require a one sneaky, devious, sly, and extremely narcissistic mind game. She'd be playing with us, pretending to want to find the killer, but secretly laughing at us and thinking she was outsmarting us.

LAUREN

Well, that's a theory—

MARYBETH

But a lousy one, I agree, because such a person would have to be a really deep sociopath and a huge narcissistic personality, and that simply isn't McCutcheon.

LAUREN

If you popped that theory to the other six suspects at that party, plus Carmen, plus me, that'd be eight women all laughing our asses off. McCutcheon as devious O. J. Simpson.

MARYBETH

Exactly. So when McCutcheon comes to us asking to re-open the case, it's because she's not only totally sincere and up-front, it goes even further, almost to a kind of naiveté, pretty much the polar opposite of devious narcissism. So that's reason number two: We both believe McCutcheon wants to get Alice out of prison for something Alice didn't do. She believes that somebody needs to find the real killer, but that is probably secondary. McCutcheon has concluded, correctly, that the one and only way to get Alice out is somebody needs to find the real killer. And Shane and Carmen conclude, again correctly, that they are the ones most highly motivated to do that.

LAUREN

Now you’re arguing the opposite side of the case from what you first thought.

MARYBETH

What's Carmen's motive? Just to help Shane?

LAUREN

I think that’s the least part of it. She's been friends with Alice for years, and if she believes – as she does – that Alice is innocent, she'd want to help get her out. Morales is a do-er, she goes out and does things. She’s pro-active, not reactive. And then there's the issue of her relationship with Schecter, her ex-lover. Carmen may be motivated to find the killer simply on the basis of that alone. Catch the person who killed her ex-lover. It’s not an academic problem, it’s personal. And she’s a movie buff. Sam Spade needs to finds out who killed his partner, Miles Archer, even if Miles was a jerk. It’s Hollywood.

MARYBETH

I was afraid you were going to tell me it’s Chinatown, Jake. Am I right that Carmen and Jenny remained friends after their break-up?

LAUREN

Yes.

MARYBETH

No spats? No recriminations? No she said/she said arguments?

LAUREN

None I'm aware of, but all that happened a couple years before the murder. And before Schecter had her breakdown.

MARYBETH

So Morales may be the only one who wasn’t pissed at Schecter.

LAUREN

No, she wasn’t pissed, but she is certainly aware that Schecter had done bad stuff to everyone else. She has no illusions about Schecter’s behavior and mental instability. And until I told them otherwise, she believed Schecter had stolen the negatives and hid them in the attic. Neither of them knew it was Nikki. Speaking of which, was there a reason you never told them, back when Nikki confessed it?

MARYBETH

No. That’s on me, I guess. Partly I was just generally disgusted with the case, and wanted to walk away. Alice had confessed, the DA’s office was moving ahead on the prosecution based on a guilty plea. A few days later the studio guy – what’s his name? Aaron something. He called, asked me when the negatives could be released from evidence. He said they were going to quietly bury the movie, and weren’t going to press charges against Nikki. I told him I didn’t care what they did with the negatives so long as they didn’t destroy them, and they could be made available somewhere down the road, if need be. He said that was no problem. But notwithstanding that, my attitude was, fuck you, fuck your cowardly studio, fuck your Hollywood politics, fuck everything. So yeah, my job was done, everything was out of my hands, so I walked away. And, like, six hours later I had another homicide anyway, and it was back to the grindstone on another case.

LAUREN

Okay, I kind of figured that. Aren't you going to be late for a meeting or something?

Marybeth laughs.

**INT. LASD CONFERENCE ROOM — DAY**

LAUREN hands out photocopies to CARMEN and SHANE.

LAUREN

This is the autopsy report and the forensic stuff. I made copies so we can all read them together. I’m guessing you’ll have lots of questions, because it’s all jargon. I’ve only skimmed it fast myself.

SHANE (muttering at what she’s reading)

Jesus.

CARMEN

Are all autopsy reports like this?

LAUREN

Pretty much.

CARMEN

At least she wasn’t pregnant. Good to know. (SHANE makes a face at her.) Sorry. Blood alcohol, point zero two.

LAUREN

She had a glass of white wine. Several of your friends confirmed it. That’s a small amount, though, and almost statistically not even measurable. Not significant. Basically it tells us she wasn’t blind drunk, didn’t stumble through the rail in a stupor. Which no one thought anyway.

They read some more.

CARMEN

Nothing in her stomach.

SHANE

We were both running around like madmen all day, getting ready for the party. I ran some of her errands to help her out. I’m not surprised she didn’t eat. I don’t think I did, either, until the party. I had some chips and dip, and a piece of celery with peanut butter. (Pause.) It’s weird, the things you remember.

LAUREN

And the things you forget. We know people often remember the littlest, tiniest, insignificant details, and forget the big, giant details. That’s why we make them repeat their stories over and over again. Sometimes it shakes something loose.

They go back to reading. After a few minutes SHANE puts her copy down and stares at the wall. Then she pick up her phone and starts checking her e-mail. CARMEN and LAUREN lock eyes, and CARMEN shakes her head no, just one millimeter. LAUREN says nothing, and continues reading.

CARMEN

A bruise on her back, consistent with the height of the railing.

LAUREN

She was shoved pretty hard. Hit the temporary railing, which was just a standard two-by-four. The bruise would have become worse, but she died almost immediately after.

They read.

LAUREN

Scars on her legs. Was she a cutter? I don’t think I knew that. Some on her arms, too.

CARMEN

She had a problem with it in college, but she stopped. Then when she had her big nervous breakdown the morning Angelica was born, Shane and I found her in the bathroom. She had cut her legs and we took her to the hospital. They treated the cuts and referred her to the psych ward. That’s how she went back to Illinois for residential treatment.

LAUREN

I didn’t know she did that in college.

SHANE

(to CARMEN)

How’d you know? She tell you?

CARMEN

No, not at first. But … how can I put this? I got to know her body pretty well.

SHANE

Oh. Right.

CARMEN and LAUREN went back to reading, and SHANE finds something important in her e-mails.

CARMEN

All right, now we’re getting to it. Water in her lungs, matches the water in the pool, and the official cause of death, drowning. I don’t claim to understand some of this but am I right, it just means she had a crack in her skull and a bump on the back of her head? A fractured skull? And a broken left wrist. And some abrasions.

LAUREN

Yes. What all this says is she went through the railing backwards and as she fell to the patio and hit the back of her head. That’s the bump, and the fracture under it. She would have been unconscious instantly. If she cried out when she was pushed, it wasn’t loud enough to be heard. She wouldn’t have screamed when she hit. And that’s when she broke her wrist and got the abrasions, landing on the cement. The pavement where she landed isn’t very wide, but they found the spot where her head hit, and as the report says, there was a little blood and a few strands of her hair. They don’t think she could have rolled into the pool. Someone walked down the stairs and rolled her into it. That person would have seen clearly she was unconscious. He – or she – might even have suspected she was dead, and she might have been close to it. But in any case it’s clear she was rolled or placed into the pool, and she was still alive when she went in. Then she drowned. So it’s not a freak accident, it’s not bad luck, it’s not manslaughter. It’s flat-out homicide. The push up on the deck may not have been intended to kill, it may have just been an unfortunate shoving match or something. But then the killer walked downstairs and put her in the pool. That’s called murder.

They glance at SHANE, whose eyes were filled with tears.

LAUREN

Forensics findings. (Passes out another report.) The techs dusted for fingerprints, collected hundreds of them. The report didn’t come back for a week, but by then Alice had confessed and the report sat in the file. But before you get your hopes up, there’s nothing in it. There were prints all over the place, including the railing on the stairwell, but why shouldn’t there be? You were all up and down the steps. They found prints from all of you, plus a couple that turned out to be from the carpenters who built the deck and stairs. No prints that couldn’t be explained, no prints from anyone who didn’t belong there.

CARMEN

Does that mean the person who pushed Jenny had to be one of the group?

LAUREN

No. It only means that whoever pushed her didn’t touch anything else, or if he or she did, the prints got smeared or overprinted. Lots of prints weren’t identifiable only because they were over top of each other. When people climb stairs they tend to put their hands in the same places. Basically the prints mean nothing.

CARMEN

Did they fingerprint our house?

LAUREN

No. Why?

CARMEN

I was thinking about the pull-down ladder in the closet and the film canisters.

LAUREN

They did print the canisters. Nikki’s prints, Shane’s prints, Tina’s prints, and a couple of film tech people from the studio, whose prints belong there.

CARMEN

Shane and Tina’s prints?

SHANE

When I saw the canisters, I picked one up and then a second one, to figure out what they were. Then when I got Tina, she picked up one.

LAUREN

Means nothing. Dead end.

CARMEN

Jenny’s fingerprints weren’t on them?

LAUREN

No.

CARMEN

Why not?

LAUREN

I don’t think she knew the negs were up there. If she had seen the negatives, everything probably would have been different.

CARMEN

How?

SHANE

She’d think I put them there. She’d think I was the one who stole them.

LAUREN

And then what?

CARMEN

Shitstorm.

SHANE

Shitstorm.

LAUREN

Okay, but why?

SHANE

Because I stole her movie.

CARMEN

No, wait a minute. We’re wrong. Or partly wrong. Shane, I don’t think Jenny would think you did it. You’d have absolutely no motive, and you were sleeping with her, you were her lover, and you are also about the last person on earth who could have stolen the movie, hid it in the attic, and said nothing, done nothing and showed nothing for weeks. Also, Jenny would have known you had no access to them. How would you have stolen them? Did you have any idea what the camera people did with the negatives, where they stored them? (SHANE shakes her head no.) See? Jenny wouldn’t think you’d done it, not even in that first instant if she’d found them. No.

SHANE

But what would she think?

CARMEN

That she was being set up.

LAUREN

Which in fact she was. And then what would happen would be (gestures to SHANE and CARMEN).

CARMEN AND SHANE

Shitstorm.

LAUREN

Right. But there was no shitstorm.

SHANE

My brain hurts. Where does all this leave us?

LAUREN

She was pushed through the railing, landed on her head, and was pushed or rolled into the pool, still alive. We have nothing else.

CARMEN

So back to Square One.

SHANE

Fuck.

LAUREN

Let’s take a break. I have to pee.

They take a bathroom break. CARMEN gets a diet soda out of the vending machine near the lobby, and SHANE gets a soda and a bag of Fritos. LAUREN gets a bottle of cold water from the refrigerator in the break room. Without preamble, she passes out more photocopies.

LAUREN

Every homicide case has a timeline prepared. What happened when. Marybeth started one. She didn’t get too far, but it’s a start. We have to finish it.

The first two pages read:

> Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Homicide Bureau
> 
> Homicide Case 51039 Schecter, Jennifer Diane
> 
> Date/Time of Homicide: 03/08/2009 Approx 2100 hours to 2115 hours
> 
> Investigators: Sgt. M. Duffy, Det/2 S. Holden, Homicide Bureau
> 
> Location: 256 14th Street, West Hollywood CA and adjacent house at 254 14th Street,
> 
> where vic resided.
> 
> TIMELINE.
> 
> 3/08/09 2100 to 2115 approx J. Schecter murdered x drowning
> 
> 3/08/09 2127 Switchboard 911 call from T. Kinnard reporting drowning
> 
> 3/08/09 2134 Squad car C-7 Cpl. R. Richards, Off. T. Hoskins arrive 256 14th Street
> 
> 3/08/09 2142 Cpl. Richards reports possible homicide
> 
> 3/08/09 2143 Dispatcher call-out to Sgt. M. Duffy, Det/2 S. Holden, Coroner, Forensic Teams
> 
> 3/08/09 2146-8 Squad cars A-6, A-19, K-8 arrive 256 14th Street
> 
> 3/08/09 2150 Coroner Unit 3 arrives 256 14th Street
> 
> 3/08/09 2152 CSI forensics team arrives 256 14th Street
> 
> 3/08/09 2201 Duffy/Holden arrive 256 14th Street
> 
> 3/08/09 2203 Duffy/Holden briefed, view scene
> 
> 3/08/09 2204 Duffy meets w/ 7 wits + infant
> 
> 3/08/09 2207 Off. T. Williams, off duty, acquaintance of above, arrives 256 14th Street
> 
> 3/08/09 2214 N. Stevens, acquaintance/ex-lover, discovered in bushes by Off. Hoskins
> 
> 3/08/09 2308 7 wits (+ infant) asked to go to LASD West Hollywood Station for further questioning
> 
> 3/08/09 2331 7 wits arrive LAPD WHS for further questioning
> 
> 3/09/09 0017 First interrogation A. Pieszecki by Duffy/Holden
> 
> 3/09/09 0119 First interrogation B. Porter by Duffy/Holden
> 
> 3/09/09 0131 Adjacent residence at 254 14th Street prelim search
> 
> 3/09/09 0148 Coroner removes body of J. Schecter
> 
> 3/09/09 0231 First interrogation T. Kinnard by Duffy/Holden
> 
> 3/09/09 0359 First interrogation S. McCutcheon by Duffy/Holden
> 
> 3/09/09 0510 First interrogation H. Peabody by Duffy/Holden
> 
> 3/09/09 0718 First interrogation K. Porter by Duffy/Holden
> 
> 3/09/09 0620 CSI/Forensics departs, scene taped off & restricted
> 
> 3/09/09 0822 First interrogation M. Sweeney by Duffy/Holden
> 
> 3/09/09 0926 First interrogation N. Stevens by Duffy/Holden
> 
> 3/10/09 0940 Telephone call from Pieszecki to Duffy requesting another interview
> 
> 3/10/09 1117 Second interrogation A. Pieszecki by Duffy/Holden, Mirandized, confesses to murder of J. Schecter
> 
> 3/10/09 1340 Pieszecki formally arrested by Duffy/Holden
> 
> 3/10/09 1344 Pieszecki calls atty. Joyce Wishnia for legal referr ALICE
> 
> 3/10/09 1344 Duffy calls ADA G. Berger, gives update
> 
> 3/10/09 1350 Duffy calls Off. T. Williams for interview
> 
> 3/10/09 1524 Pieszecki taken to holding cell
> 
> 3/11/09 1006 Pieszecki atty. Malcolm Drinkwater arrives, confers with client
> 
> 3/15/09 0756 Forensic report picked up by Duffy
> 
> 3/16/09 0818 Duffy/Holden arrive at coroners for Schecter autopsy
> 
> 3/18/09 1123 Schecter autopsy results delivered.

LAUREN

That’s as far as Marybeth got. (Passes out more photocopies.) I’ve added some stuff to it, mainly the blanks we need to fill in before and after the part Marybeth completed. Some I filled out. And I changed last names to first names because … well, just because. And I kind of boxed off the farewell party itself, which is the one we have to work on hardest.

It reads:

> ?/??/09 0000 Date believed negatives stolen
> 
> ?/??/09 0000 Date Max tells Jenny Adele is trouble
> 
> ?/??/09 0000 Date Production on Lez Girls begins
> 
> ?/??/09 0000 Date Bike marathon, Jenny/Nikki make sex tape
> 
> ?/??/09 0000 Date SHANE breaks up w/ Molly
> 
> ?/??/09 0000 Date Adele coup against Jenny on film set
> 
> ?/??/09 0000 Date Lez Girls wrap party, Jenny discovers SHANE/Nikki sex
> 
> ?/??/09 0000 Date Jenny has sex with Nikki, rejects Nikki
> 
> ?/??/09 0000 Date believed negatives stolen
> 
> ?/??/09 0000 Date negatives discovered to be missing, who informed when?
> 
> ?/??/09 1800 Baby shower: Jenny tells Dylan about Nikki plot, angering Helena
> 
> ?/??/09 0000 Date Jenny sees Bette & Kelly in kitchen sex
> 
> ?/??/09 0000 Jenny threatens to tell Tina about Bette/Kelly
> 
> ?/??/09 0000 Date Alice discovers Jenny stole manuscript/treatment
> 
> 2/??/09 0000 Date Tina/Bette have dinner, Tina accuses William/Aaron of stealing negatives
> 
> ?/??/09 0000 Date Molly returned jacket to Jenny, assume placed in attic
> 
> 3/08/09 0000 Time SHANE talks to Molly about letter/jacket
> 
> 3/08/09 0000 Time SHANE discovers jacket, negatives
> 
> 3/08/09 0000 Time SHANE notifies Tina, Tina sees negatives
> 
> ——————————
> 
> 3/08/09 0000 Times girls arrived at party
> 
> 3/08/09 0000 Comings and goings at party
> 
> 3/08/09 0000 Last time Jenny seen alive by ??
> 
> 3/08/09 2100 to 2115 approx Jenny pushed through railing, drowned
> 
> ——————————-
> 
> 3/08/09 2127 Switchboard 911 call from Tina reporting drowning
> 
> 3/08/09 2134 Squad car C-7 Cpl. R Richards, Off. T. Hoskins arrive 256 14th Street
> 
> 3/08/09 2142 Cpl. Richards reports possible homicide
> 
> 3/08/09 2143 Dispatcher call-out to Sgt. M. Duffy, Det/2 S. Holden, Coroner, Forensic Teams
> 
> 3/08/09 2146-8 Squad cars A-6, A-19, K-8 arrive 256 14th Street
> 
> 3/08/09 2150 Coroner Unit 3 arrives 256 14th Street
> 
> 3/08/09 2152 CSI forensics team arrives 256 14th Street
> 
> 3/08/09 2201 Duffy/Holden arrive 256 14th Street
> 
> 3/08/09 2203 Duffy/Holden briefed view scene
> 
> 3/08/09 2204 Duffy meets w/ 7 wits + infant
> 
> 3/08/09 2207 Off. Tasha Williams, off duty, acquaintance/Alice ex-lover, arrives 256 14th Street
> 
> 3/08/09 2214 Nikki, acquaintance/ex-lover, discovered in bushes by Off. Hoskins
> 
> 3/08/09 2308 7 wits (+ infant) asked to go to LASD West Hollywood Station for further questioning
> 
> 3/08/09 2331 7 wits arrive LAPD WHS for further questioning
> 
> 3/09/09 0017 First interrogation Alice by Duffy/Holden
> 
> 3/09/09 0119 First interrogation Bette by Duffy/Holden
> 
> 3/09/09 0131 Adjacent residence at 254 14th Street prelim search
> 
> 3/09/09 0148 Coroner removes Jenny, taken to morgue
> 
> 3/09/09 0231 First interrogation Tina by Duffy/Holden
> 
> 3/09/09 0359 First interrogation Shane by Duffy/Holden
> 
> 3/09/09 0510 First interrogation Helena by Duffy/Holden
> 
> 3/09/09 0620 CSI/Forensics departs, scene taped off & restricted
> 
> 3/09/09 0718 First interrogation Kit by Duffy/Holden
> 
> 3/09/09 0822 First interrogation Max by Duffy/Holden
> 
> 3/09/09 0926 First interrogation Nikki by Duffy/Holden
> 
> 3/10/09 0940 Telephone call from Alice to Duffy requesting another interview
> 
> 3/10/09 1117 Second interrogation Alice by Duffy/Holden, Mirandized, confesses to murder of Jenny
> 
> 3/10/09 1344 Pieszecki calls atty. Joyce Wishnia for legal referr ALICE
> 
> 3/10/09 1344 Duffy calls ADA G. Berger, gives update
> 
> 3/10/09 1350 Duffy calls Tasha Williams for interview
> 
> 3/10/09 1524 Alice taken to holding cell
> 
> 3/11/09 1006 Alice’s atty. Malcolm Drinkwater arrives, confers with client
> 
> 3/12/09 0930 Interview with Tasha
> 
> 3/16/09 0756 Forensic report picked up by Duffy
> 
> 3/16/09 0818 Duffy/Holden arrive at coroners for Jenny autopsy
> 
> 3/18/09 1123 Jenny autopsy results delivered
> 
> 4/01/09 Alice preliminary hearing, pleads guilty
> 
> 4/05/09 Alice bail hearing, no bail requested, bail denied
> 
> 4/27/09 Grand jury indictment (pro forma)
> 
> 5/13/09 Alice trial expedited by guilty plea, pled down to second degree manslaughter
> 
> 5/26/09 Alice sentencing hearing, 7-10 years
> 
> 5/27/09 Alice arrives Humboldt Farm.

CARMEN finishes reading and glances at SHANE. A tear runs down SHANE’s cheek.

CARMEN

You okay?

SHANE

Yeah. No. This is a lot harder than I expected. Harder, and different. I don’t know what I expected, but … It’s just hard.

LAUREN

I know. Seeing Jenny reduced to paperwork. Cop jargon, legal jargon, autopsy jargon. Shane, keep this in mind: This isn’t our Jenny they’re talking about. It’s somebody else.

SHANE

I guess, if you say so. Kinda hard to do.

LAUREN (quietly)

Shane, I hate to say this, but you’re going to have to take the lead on this timeline. You know a lot of the dates and times. Do you keep a calendar or datebook in your phone? Or written down somewhere?

SHANE

On my phone.

LAUREN

Do you still have February and March 2009? Or do you erase back stuff?

SHANE

No, I don’t erase. Maybe I should, but I don’t.

LAUREN

Good. Can you bring up February?

SHANE

Yes (working on her phone), but I can give you some things off the top of my head. It was about 4:30, 5 o’clock when I talked to Molly and she told me about the letter and returning my jacket. I was shopping for a farewell present for Bette and Tina, I had picked out this big bowl I thought they’d like, like a table centerpiece bowl, you know? And that’s when I ran into Molly. And then I went straight home, I didn’t even get the bowl, I was so pissed. I guess it was after 5 when I got home, like 5:30, maybe going on 6. It was starting to get dark. Anybody know when it got dark on that day?

CARMEN

I got it. (Googles something.) Sundown, March 8, 2009, 6:55 p.m.

SHANE

Okay. So let’s say I talked to Molly around 5 and got home about 6.

LAUREN

Then what happened?

SHANE

I immediately started searching the house. I went to Jenny’s closet, started looking in boxes and stuff. And after, I don’t know, fifteen minutes, I thought about the attic and pulled the stairs down. I went up, and found my jacket, and the letter. (Flashbacks as appropriate.) I sat on the top step and read the letter. I – it took a while. Finally, I stood up to leave, and I was partly sitting on this sheet that was covering some boxes, and when I stood up it pulled away, and then I saw the canisters under it. I picked one up. I thought, holy shit, Jenny, you motherfucker. I’m sorry, but that’s what I thought. I went next door to get Tina. It was getting dark outside, so maybe a little after 7? Something like that. I went into Bette and Tina’s house, and everybody was already there, I think, but in different places, upstairs, downstairs. Tina was in the kitchen. I asked her to come next door, she asked why. I said, just trust me. So we went to our house and into the bedroom and up into the attic. Seven fifteen? Seven thirty? Is any of this important?

LAUREN

We generally don’t ask if something is important until after we’ve got all the information. Then we can go back and decide.

LAUREN updates the timeline on her laptop and makes these entries.

> 3/08/09 1700 Shane talks to Molly about letter/jacket
> 
> 3/08/09 1830 Shane discovers jacket, negatives
> 
> 3/08/09 1830-1900 Times wits/suspect arrived at party
> 
> 3/08/09 1910 Shane notifies Tina, Tina sees negatives.

LAUREN

Great. What else is in your calendar?

SHANE

Subaru Pink Ride, November 22 and 23, the weekend before Thanksgiving.

LAUREN types:

> 11/22-3/08 Subaru Pink Ride bike marathon, Jenny/Nikki make sex tape.

SHANE

The baby shower for Max was February 14. Started at 6 p.m.

CARMEN (LOOKING AT CELLPHONE)

Yeah, that’s what I have, too. (SHANE looks at her.) What? I sent them a present for the baby.

LAUREN types:

> 2/22/09 1800 Baby shower; Jenny tells Dylan about Nikki plot, angering Helena.

CARMEN

They started shooting the movie on Tuesday, September 2. I know because it was the day after the three-day Labor Day weekend. Jenny came up to San Francisco for a visit, and she was really wired about the movie starting up.

SHANE

No, that can’t be right. I don’t remember what date it was, but she flew home to visit her folks in Skokie that weekend. I drove her to the airport that Friday afternoon.

CARMEN (keeping eyes on her cellphone)

I know you did. She lied to you. You dropped her at the terminal, but she got on a different plane than you thought, that’s all. She told me when she got to San Francisco.

SHANE

Fuck! She lied? What did you say?

CARMEN

I didn’t say anything. What, did you think I was going to call you up and say, “By the way, Jenny’s here with me, she’s not in Illinois. She’s a big fibber.” Why would I do that? It’s not like Jenny hasn’t lied to people a couple hundred times. At least this one was pretty harmless and nobody got hurt. She knew you’d get all bent out of shape if she told you she was coming to visit me for a few days. She did you a favor, if you ask me.

LAUREN types:

> 9/02/08 Production on Lez Girls begins.

LAUREN

Do you have the wrap party?

SHANE

The wrap party was Saturday night, January 24, but the actual wrap was on Wednesday. They needed a few days to arrange the party on short notice. It was supposed to start at six. And the sun was still up when I got there.

LAUREN types:

> 1/24/09 1800 Lez Girls wrap party, Jenny discovers SHANE/Nikki sex. Shane evicted.

LAUREN

Got more?

SHANE

Nikki told me the next night Jenny invited her over and they fucked all night long, then in the morning Jenny kicked her out.

LAUREN types:

> 1/26/09 Morning — Jenny has all-night sex w/ Nikki, rejects her in the morning.

LAUREN

When Adele took over the movie from Jenny?

SHANE

It was between Christmas and New Year’s. The first Monday after Christmas.

LAUREN

December 29, 2008. It happened in the morning?

SHANE

It was getting close to lunch.

LAUREN types:

> 12/29/08 circa 1100 Adele coup against Jenny on film set.

LAUREN

Carmen, here’s a question in your wheelhouse. They wrap filming on a Wednesday. I’m guessing the film from the last day’s shooting goes to be developed, right? And then they get it back. And then the film editors start working on it, is that right? So how long does all this take?

CARMEN

They can get the developed negs back pretty quick, in a day or two, because everyone wants to make sure the film’s okay, before they send everybody home forever and tear down the sets. In case they need to re-shoot anything. So yeah, if they wrap on a Wednesday they’d have the film back – or at least they’d get an okay on it, a telephone call, you’re good to go – sometime Friday, maybe late in the day. And that would help with the wrap party, too, because if something needed re-shooting, they’d have had to tell the relevant people.

LAUREN

Would they have cancelled the party?

CARMEN

Oh, no, almost certainly not. The wrap party is just kind of ceremonial, because the production isn’t done by a long shot. Just the photography and the actors and what-not. But the editing and all the the post-production work, and distribution stuff, the promotion, that all starts first thing Monday morning. Tearing down the sets. Cleaning up the actors’ trailers and returning them to the rental people. Costumes, cleaning them, returning them. You know, all the bookkeeping and accounting stuff, that still continues, because it ain’t over until the fat lady sings. And anyway, a lot of the editing has been going on while they’ve been shooting, but how much they’ve got done by wrap varies all over the lot. Depends on how involved the director wants to be. If he or she wants to be there for editing, they basically can’t start until photography is finished and the director’s freed up.

LAUREN

Do you know anything about the editing for Lez Girls?

CARMEN

No. The film canisters could have been stolen at any time during the editing process, starting that last day.

LAUREN

So where would the canisters have been kept? Where were they stolen from?

CARMEN

Most likely in some editing room or a film vault next door to it. We’d need to talk to the actual editors, the cutters. It’s pretty much a Monday-to-Friday, nine-to-five job. They probably returned the canisters to some vault or storage thing over the weekend, unless somebody was going to work on them.

LAUREN

Okay, they finish filming on the 21st, the wrap party is Saturday the 24th. They get the film back on Monday the 26th and start or continue editing and cutting, right.

CARMEN

Sounds okay.

LAUREN

Jenny fucks Nikki all Sunday night and kicks her out Monday morning, and as the film gets back from the developing people and editing begins or continues. They work all day. So can we assume the window for the theft of the canisters opens some time after work on Monday the 26th?

CARMEN

Again, sounds reasonable.

LAUREN

Could they have been stolen during the day?

CARMEN

With all those people around? No.

LAUREN

Don’t they break for lunch?

CARMEN

Sure. And they take smoke breaks if they smoke, and go get a soda, pick up their dry-cleaning, whatever. But I don’t think anyone could slip in during the day and collect all the canisters, There would be pieces of film everywhere, in the splicer, being viewed. Maybe a couple people doing it, not just one. And anyway, half the editors I’ve met eat at their consoles, or run to the cafeteria if there’s no craft services table. It’s not like they all break at noon and go away for an hour. Anyway, not all the canisters would be out, only the one being worked on. If they went missing during lunch, it would have been reported right away.

LAUREN types:

> 1/26/09 After 6 p.m.? Window opens for negatives to be stolen. Nikki jilted that morning.

SHANE

Why don’t we just ask Nikki when she stole them?

LAUREN

We’re going to. But we like to know the answers to questions before we ask them. Pretty standard cop and courtroom rule.

SHANE puts her head down on the table.

SHANE

My head hurts. Can I go home?

LAUREN

Your head hurt yesterday.

SHANE

I know. It hurts today, too.

CARMEN (Schwarzenegger accent)

It’s a toomah.

LAUREN (Schwarzenegger accent)

It’s not a toomah,

SHANE

What? A toomah? What’s a toomah?

CARMEN (Schwarzenegger accent)

It’s not a toomah.

LAUREN

Tumor. Never mind. It’s a punchline from an old Arnold Scwarzenegger movie. Yes, we can knock off for the day. I’ll see you guys tomorrow.

CARMEN

And … scene!

**INT. LASD CONFERENCE ROOM — DAY**

When they return to the conference room the next morning, yawning and carrying their coffee, LAUREN is already hard at work.

LAUREN

Okay, I’ve got some news. We were all wrong about how the canisters got stolen. Last night I talked to Aaron Kornbluth at the studio and this morning at six a.m. I called Tina in New York, since they are three hours ahead of us. Basically they both tell the same story. The film lab doing the developing was Deluxe Motion Picture Labs— (looks at CARMEN).

CARMEN

Yeah, I know them. Lots of studios use them. Big outfit.

LAUREN

That’s what Aaron said. Anyway, Deluxe was backed up all that week and weekend. They called somebody or other at the studio and told them the negs came out okay, but that they couldn’t ship them out until late Monday afternoon. Somebody said that was fine. And then here’s where it gets interesting. Sometime in mid-afternoon Deluxe got faxed a letter on the studio letterhead telling them a messenger service would come by at 8 p.m. to pick up the negs. It was somebody called Eastside Messengers.

CARMEN

Sure. They aren’t all that big, but I’ve heard of them.

LAUREN

Right. And here’s the thing. Aaron says that letter was signed by Tina.

SHANE

No way. (Slouched half asleep and nursing a coffee, but fully alert now.)

LAUREN

I know, and Aaron says when he first told Tina about it Tuesday mid-morning, she denied it vehemently. And he says the more he thought about it the more he agreed Tina hadn’t done it, but that somebody had forged her name. Tina tells me basically the same version, Aaron confronted her, waving around a copy of the letter, he was furious, she was furious, she denied it, he told her to find out who, blah blah, yelling at each other. So anyway, about eight Monday night a messenger goes to Deluxe Labs, picks up the canisters, and delivers them to … (Pauses dramatically, looking from one to the other).

SHANE shrugs.

CARMEN

Jennifer Schecter.

LAUREN

Almost. Delivered to Wilson/Cramer Productions, a small porno production outfit out in the valley. But wait for it … Wilson/Cramer Productions, attention …

CARMEN and SHANE

Jennifer Schecter.

LAUREN

Bingo.

SHANE

Fuck.

LAUREN

But Jenny didn’t get them, any more than Tina signed the letter authorizing the pickup. Because whoever did it, and we now know it’s Nikki, figured the canister delivery would be traced, and when they saw Jenny’s name as being the person who was supposed to receive them, they’d get a warrant and go search Shane and Jenny’s house—

CARMEN

—and find the canisters in the attic.

LAUREN

Give the little lady a kewpie doll.

SHANE

Wouldn’t they also blame Tina as being part of the theft?

CARMEN

No, because they conclude that Jenny was the one who had forged Tina’s name and sent the fax to Deluxe. Somebody might do a handwriting analysis on the original of the letter and determine it wasn’t Tina’s signature.

SHANE

Would they discover it was Nikki’s handwriting?

LAUREN

Who knows, but I doubt it. I’d guess it was Nikki who faxed it, but that doesn’t mean she signed it. She has all these minions, all her posse hanging around with here. She could have gotten anybody to sign it, just as she could have sent somebody out to the valley to pick up the canisters from that editing outfit.

CARMEN

I had no idea Nikki was that clever.

LAUREN

No, me either. We’re going to have to re-think her.

SHANE

I can’t believe nobody knew this back then.

LAUREN

Ah, there we come full circle. The canisters weren’t discovered until the evening of Jenny’s murder. That entire trail of evidence, falsely pointing to Jenny, would have eventually been discovered, if… ? (Looks at SHANE and CARMEN.)

CARMEN

If Alice hadn’t confessed.

LAUREN

If Alice hadn’t confessed, which rendered everything having to do with the film negatives moot and irrelevant. Alice had no connection to the negs, no access, probably even not a shred of knowledge about their existence or where they were, or anything. She had her own motive to kill Jenny but it had nothing to do with the negatives, it had to do with Jenny stealing Alice’s screenplay treatment. and then covering for Shane—

CARMEN

Who also didn’t do it.

LAUREN

—who also didn’t do it. And when we talk to Nikki, we’re going to go all over this with a fine-tooth comb, even if there’s no prosecution for the theft part.

SHANE

What’s that mean?

LAUREN

Remember, the studio had no interest in pressing charges and they want to bury the whole sorry mess. However, if we determine it was Nikki who killed Jenny, then it all comes back into play. So because of that possibility, we’ve got to keep and preserve as much of this evidence as we can. Last night I talked to Marybeth, and she gave me permission to tell Aaron we’re formally looking at Jenny’s murder again and that he’s not allowed to destroy anything related to the movie in any way, shape, or form.

CARMEN

Did you tell him anything about Nikki becoming a suspect?

LAUREN

No, not specifically, but I did say we’re looking at the theft of the movie as just one possibility. And I gave him a little mis-direction. I hinted we’re looking at both you and Tina, more than Nikki.

SHANE (angry)

Why’d you tell him that?

LAUREN

Because I knew he’d like it. He doesn’t want Jenny, Nikki, or Tina connected to the murder if he can help it, because they’re all his people, and intimately connected to the movie and the studio. But you were an on-call, freelance day-contract hairdresser, and Jenny’s lover. He can live with that just fine.

CARMEN

Shane, it’s the smart move. And remember, we haven’t eliminated Aaron as a suspect, either, although he’s not high on our list.

SHANE

And everybody thinks I did it, anyway.

LAUREN

We’re using that to our advantage. I know it’s hard on you, but we have to use the tools we have. That’s one of them.

SHANE

Okay, I get it. I’m a tool. (Smiles, and LAUREN and CARMEN laugh.)

LAUREN

Now you’ve got it.

**EXT. DRIVING AROUND LA TO ALICE’S APARTMENT, THEN SHAOLIN STUDIO — DAY**

LAUREN picks up CARMEN at her mom’s house, they eat breakfast at a hole-in-the-wall Hispanic cafe on North Broadway in Lincoln Park. They go to ALICE’s apartment, where SHANE is still in her underwear, and wait while she dresses. They drive to Shaolin Studio and are directed to a trailer in an alley behind a sound stage.

INT. ADELE’S TRAILER AT SHAOLIN STUDIO — DAY

ADELE enters her trailer, where SHANE, CARMEN and LAUREN are waiting.

ADELE

Hey, sorry I’m late. Story conferences can be clusterfucks. You know how writers are.

LAUREN (smiling and flashing her badge)

Sgt. Lauren Hancock, and this is Carmen Morales. You know Shane, of course.

ADELE (shaking hands)

Shane, good to see you again.

SHANE (cold)

Adele.

ADELE

Sit down, everybody. Did Tabitha offer you water or coffee? Okay, good. (Sticks her head out the trailer door and calls someone.) Tabs, I’m parched. Can I get a cucumber water with lime, please?

ADELE (sits in a swivel captain’s chair across from the couch)

So. I heard you’re investigating Jenny’s murder again.

LAUREN

That’s right. We have reason to believe Alice didn’t do it, so we’re taking a fresh look at it. There were lots of leads and lots of motives and suspects who never got properly tracked down.

ADELE

So this is like an episode from the Cold Case Files.

LAUREN

Sort of, but not that cold, actually. Maybe only mildly chilly. One of the avenues we want to pursue are the stolen film negatives from Lez Girls.

ADELE

Nikki Stevens stole them, right? That’s what Aaron told me. It wasn’t Jenny, after all.

LAUREN

Right, it was Nikki. And probably she was the one who planted them in the attic of Jenny and Shane’s house. You’re aware they were discovered there the evening of Jenny’s murder, correct?

ADELE

Yes, that’s what I heard. And you think there’s a connection.

LAUREN

That’s what we’re looking at, yes.

ADELE

Pardon me for being a little … um … undiplomatic, but why didn’t the police look into it at the time?

CARMEN

For the simple reason Alice confessed.

LAUREN

Carmen’s right. Alice’s confession knocked a thorough investigation into a cocked hat. Alice had nothing to do with the negatives or the movie, and there was no reason to spend any more time on it, so nobody did. It was nobody’s fault, well, nobody except Alice. But yes, we’re now trying to fix that oversight. So what can you tell us about the negatives?

ADELE

Not much. I heard about them being missing right when everybody else did. I mean, you know, Aaron and Tina. I was in a meeting with some promotion and advertising people in a conference room down the hall from Aaron’s office— (TABITHA comes in and puts ADELE’s glass of cucumber water on her desk and exits silently) – Thanks, Tabs. There was a lot of coming and going in his suite, and everybody could hear some yelling. Pretty soon Tina came in, I guess Aaron told her to get her ass in there, and then more yelling, and she stomped out. After my meeting I went to the set, they were dismantling it, and found Tina. “What was THAT all about?” I asked. She told me the negatives were stolen, and that Aaron had accused her of taking them. She was pretty angry. You should have heard her.

SHANE

We did hear her. (Everybody laughs.)

LAUREN

You talk to Aaron?

ADELE

Sure, right after Tina told me. I mean, that was my movie, you know? I took over from Jenny, I was the director, so I was really pissed.

LAUREN

What did Aaron say?

ADELE

That the negs were “unaccounted for.” That was what he said, “unaccounted for.” I said, “You mean stolen, right?” He said, “Fucking A, stolen.” I said, “Tina says you said she did it.” He says, “Yeah, I said that, but now I think about it, I’m pretty sure she was set up.” So I say, By who? That cunt Jenny?” Sorry, but that’s what I said. He says, “I don’t know. Maybe. I’ve got the security office investigating it.” I say, “Now what?” He says, “Go back to work, keep doing what you were doing. We’ve got to assume we’ll find them, get them back, buy them back, pay the extortion, whatever it takes. Let me worry about it. You keep on with the post-production. Oh, and don’t talk about it to anybody just yet, until we know exactly what happened.”

LAUREN

He said that? Pay the extortion?

ADELE

Sure, he said it. Why?

LAUREN

Just curious. I mean, it indicates he had an idea already about why they were stolen.

ADELE

Well, maybe. But it’s the first thing popped into my mind, too. Somebody stole them and we were gonna get a ransom demand for them.

LAUREN

You never thought anybody would take them so they could destroy them?

ADELE

To tell you the truth, no, that never crossed my mind. Somebody or other suggested it, but I never gave it a serious thought. I figured it was either about money or revenge, or a combination. I mean, if it was Jenny who took them, I can see her having both motives, money and revenge. Right?

LAUREN

Jenny was really pissed that you replaced her, got her fired and kicked off the lot..

ADELE

Well, yes. And I know where you’re going. It makes me a suspect.

LAUREN

Yes, it does.

ADELE (shrugs)

So ask me what you want. I didn’t kill her, if that helps. But remember, she was mad at me, I wasn’t angry at her.

LAUREN

Not until you thought she stole your movie.

SHANE (quietly)

Jenny’s movie.

ADELE

What I did I did for the good of the movie and for the good of the studio. To be perfectly frank, Jenny was out-of-control, and her fucking Nikki Stevens and doing it all so publicly was going to hurt us, as well as tarnish if not ruin Nikki’s career. So yes, sure, I know what you’re thinking, I plotted and schemed and got her kicked off the set and out of the studio. Yep. I plead guilty. Did it. You nailed me. But see, what’s why I didn’t kill her. I won, she lost. There was no point to me killing her. To be even more blunt, her murder made a small, containable scandal into a much bigger, uncontainable one. Her murder made a huge mess. Before, it’s just extortion or ransom, Aaron quietly forks over the money, we get the negs back, life goes on. Can you find any possible reason why I, of all people, would have wanted a police investigation into a murder? I mean, shit, come on, girls.

LAUREN

Do you have an alibi for that evening?

ADELE

Sad to say, no. I mean, I was home alone. Watching TV, working on a new movie, pre-production stuff. But no alibi. (Shrugs)

LAUREN

The murder was a Sunday evening. You were working? On a Sunday night?

ADELE

Carmen, you can explain?

CARMEN

She means movie people are workaholics, they work on stuff twenty-four, seven, three sixty-five. Jenny, too. When she came up to visit me right before shooting started, she tried to work all weekend. I had to practically kidnap her to go get a drink and go to dinner.

LAUREN (to ADELE)

You had the TV on? You remember what you watched?

ADELE

Not really, no. I just have the TV on for background noise. 60 Minutes, that was on, I think. That lezzie show on Showtime, sometimes I watch that to see who’s fucking who. I think it was near the end of its season. Whatever it was, I don’t remember it. Sorry.

LAUREN

How’d you hear about Jenny’s murder?

ADELE

Aaron called me out of a meeting first thing Monday morning. “My office, right now,” he says. “We got a shitstorm.” I go to his office and there’s five or six people in there, watching TV, a breaking news story, West Hollywood murder, lesbians, fired studio director, blah blah. You all probably saw it, too, it was all over the news for a day or two.

LAUREN

Did you go to Jenny’s memorial service?

ADELE

You kidding me? Jenny’s posse was there, Shane, Tina, Bette, all of them, they’d have torn me limb from limb if I showed up. I mean, no offense, guys, but you would have, right? I wasn’t exactly welcome. Aaron and William went, and some other studio suits.

LAUREN

What was in your head at the time. What did you think about Jenny’s murder? Who killed her, and why. About the stolen negatives. Who do you think are good suspects?

ADELE

I hate to say it, but I think there’s one good suspect in this room right at this minute.

SHANE

Fuck you. (Whispers, not looking at Adele.)

LAUREN (authoritative)

Shane didn’t do it. So who else? Nikki Stevens?

ADELE

Sure, she's a candidate. That’s one fucked-up girl. I’m not sure she’s smart enough to kill anybody, she’s usually too drunk or stoned.

LAUREN

What would have been her motive?

ADELE

Crazy people don’t need motive. A minor passing whim. A bad mood. A thrill. There’s snakes inside that girl’s head. And don’t forget her posse. Could have been one of them, doing it based on a casual idea that flitted across Nikki’s brain for an instant. It’s hard to tell or be specific.

LAUREN

I understand she’s in rehab at the moment.

ADELE

Last I heard. I think she has rehab on retainer and speed-dial. Maybe this time it’ll fix what the previous four or five rehabs couldn’t.

LAUREN

Did you ever sleep with her?

ADELE (hoots)

Fuck, no. Are you kidding? Ah, no. How can I say this? Ewwwwww.

LAUREN

You ever sleep with Jenny?

ADELE

No, never.

LAUREN

Why not?

ADELE

Mutual lack of interest.

LAUREN

You know Jenny didn’t steal the negatives. Why do you think Nikki did?

ADELE

You’re asking me to read that woman’s mind? That’s impossible.

LAUREN

She made it look like Jenny did it. Framed her.

ADELE

Yes, that’s what I heard.

LAUREN

Got any idea why?

ADELE

Beyond revenge, you mean? Who knows what Jenny did to deserve it. God knows, there was plenty of foreplay.

LAUREN

Let’s talk about Tina as a suspect.

ADELE

Killing Jenny or stealing the negatives with Nikki? Nah, no way. Neither.

LAUREN

Why not?

ADELE

Let me put this politely. I like Tina, I thought she did a good job on Lez Girls. She has good management skills, people skills. But Tina lacks the killer instinct. I’m not talking about murder, I just mean business, studio politics, handling people, especially actors and writers and directors, you know? She’s good, I’m not saying she isn’t. But I’d like to play poker against her. I’d call her bluff every time. I don’t think she’s tough enough. So no, she wouldn’t kill anybody. She doesn’t have it in her. (Appeals to Carmen and Shane.) Guys? You agree? Did I say anything you don’t agree with?

LAUREN

Have you ever been to Jenny’s house?

ADELE

Three times, I think. Once I gave her a ride home when her car was getting detailed, twice to drop off some work.

LAUREN

Were you ever inside the house?

ADELE

No, never.

LAUREN

So never been in Jenny’s bedroom?

ADELE

You’re shitting me. No, never.

LAUREN

Do you have a police record? I can find out with a simple phone call.

ADELE (hesitates)

Some stuff when I was a teenager. Stupid kid shit. One drunk driving, six years ago.

LAUREN

Nothing else?

ADELE

I dated Charles Manson and I'm a spy for the Chinese. No, nothing else.

LAUREN

How much did it cost to make Lez Girls? How much did the studio lose?

ADELE

That’s the great thing about porn, and lesbian melodramas if there’s no historical costumes. No CGI, no special effects, keeps the costs down. Lez Girls was about four point seven million, and change. It would have cost a little more, but it was never finished. Never edited, virtually no post—production costs, no promotion. I have no idea what’s on the books.

LAUREN

Why not? You were the director, at the end.

ADELE

Sure. But even directors don’t see the books. Carmen, help me out here. Studio accounting practices are … how can I put this?

CARMEN

Accounting practices are creative. Whatever paperwork and cost figures anyone would have showed Adele wouldn’t mean anything. She could be telling us the God’s honest truth about finances and costs as she believes them to be, and be completely honest and sincere and truthful, and still be wrong by 500 percent. Her numbers could be one hundred percent accurate down to the penny, and still be different from what the books say by, oh, seven hundred percent.

ADELE

Right. Exactly. That one knows her stuff.

LAUREN

It’s why we keep her around, that and her mom’s cooking. Tell me about Aaron and William.

ADELE

Aaron? What do you want to know about him for? William is some kind of money guy. They call them angels in this business.

LAUREN

Is he?

ADELE

Is he what?

LAUREN

An angel. You ever sleep with him?

ADELE bursts out laughing and swivels in her chair a full three hundred and sixty degrees.

ADELE

Now you are just playing with me. You ever see him?

LAUREN

You make an excellent point. Ambitious young women never fuck ugly old men just to get their money or advance their careers, especially in a place like Hollywood. I withdraw the question. You ever sleep with Aaron?

ADELE

No. I never slept with Aaron. To be perfectly truthful, I don’t even know what his orientation is. According to rumor, he’s divorced, but from who or what I can’t say.

LAUREN

Come on, there must be studio gossip.

ADELE

Sure there’s gossip, but it isn’t very helpful. Boring, and poorly sourced. Look, he’s a power guy, and into money, like William is. He plays his cards close to the chest, he’s not a skirt-chaser or a boy chaser, for that matter. Whatever it is he likes, he does it far from public view. You ask me, he never has sex with anything, even sheep, but that’s just an uninformed wild guess. People think the movie industry is all about sex. It isn't. It's just another power game.

LAUREN

Good to know. He likes money and power. Would he or William kill for it? Or hire somebody to kill for it? For a while it looked like Jenny cost them four point whatever million dollars. Yes? No?

ADELE

That’s an accounting question, as far as I’m concerned, and I don’t know much about accounting. I’m told the movie cost four million whatever. Did it come out of their pockets? I have no idea. Did they write it off? Was there some kind of insurance? Was it financed by somebody else? Were there other investors besides William? That’s all way, way above my pay grade, Detective Hancock.

LAUREN

One last question. When the shit all hit the fan here, Aaron pretty much cleaned house, am I right? So how did you keep your job?

ADELE (flash of anger)

Because I'm good at it. In my own way, I'm loyal, and Aaron knows it. Am I a bitch, a snitch, and a backstabber? Sure. But I'm Aaron's bitch, snitch, and backstabber. Even apart from that, I earn my pay, every day, twenty-four, seven, three sixty-five, and not on my back or my knees. Any more questions?

LAUREN

You want to be head of this studio someday. That's not a question.

ADELE

Exactly right. And if I'm not head of this studio someday, I'll be head of some other studio. I'm going to do it without fucking somebody to get that job. I'm going to get it because I earned it, doing every shitty job that comes along that teaches me some new skill, some new piece of how a studio operates, and learning which people know their craft and which ones are phonies and incompetents, who is reliable and who is a flake.

LAUREN

Fair enough. So tell me, what did you think of Lez Girls. As a movie, as a project you worked on.

ADELE

Self-indulgent script, but it had potential, good bones. Straight ingenue from the Midwest comes to Hollywood, discovers she's lez, finds a home in this highly improbably group of beautiful, glamorous, Rodeo Drive clothes horses, proceeds to destroy herself and those around her with all kinds of excess. A classic Hollywood morality tale, if you think about it. Scarface with dykes. Al Pachino plays Jenny.

LAUREN

They wanted to change the ending, have her go straight and go back to her boyfriend. That pissed off a lot of people. You go along with it?

ADELE

I'm not sure what you're asking. Did I go along with it? Yes, because that's what the suits wanted. If you’re asking, it was a totally craven, crass, cowardly decision. But that's the business we're in. Craven, crass, and cowardly often win in Hollywood. Actually, it seems to win most places, if you ask me. That's one reason I want to run a big studio someday. Underneath my cold, heartless, scheming bitch exterior, I have this teensy, tinsey little spark of idealism. I want to kick craven crass cowardly's ass. You can't do that from any place but at the top. There’s lots of bad guys in this town, but there’s lots of good guys, heroes and heroines, too. I’m going to be one, some day.

LAUREN

If you have any soul left when you get there.

ADELE

Oh, absolutely, you're correct. Yes, it's a race. How many pieces of your soul do you sell to get there, and how much will you have left at the end, if any. Sure, I'm aware of that. Might even make a good screenplay, if nobody fucks it up.

LAUREN

What did you think of the production itself?

ADELE

The production? Hah! Clusterfuck. But hey, all movies are clusterfucks, they're controlled chaos. Again, ask Carmen. The good ones manage somehow to come together at the end, in the cutting room. Some are shit, irredeemable, but you don't know it at the time. And there's a few that are just so good, so golden, that no amount of cluster-fucking can ruin them. Somebody once said that in Hollywood, nobody knows anything.

CARMEN

William Goldman. He wrote The Princess Bride and Butch Cassidy.

ADELE

There ya go. Told you she knows her stuff.

**INT. STUDIO COMMISSARY — DAY**

They are in the studio commissary eating lunch and killing time before their appointment with AARON at 2 p.m.

CARMEN

That was gutsy, asking how she kept her job during the purge. You were provoking her.

LAUREN

I wanted to see if she has a temper. If she blows up.

CARMEN

You made her angry, but she hardly reacted at all.

LAUREN

No. And I don't think she killed Jenny. Shane, you've been quiet. Everything okay? What's on your mind?

SHANE

I'm okay.

LAUREN (glances at Carmen, who shrugs)

So, what's your intuition say about Adele?

SHANE

She didn't do it.

LAUREN

But…?

SHANE

I'd like to send her to the electric chair anyway.

LAUREN

California doesn't use the electric chair anymore.

SHANE

Not my problem. (They laugh.) I say, strap her in and turn on the juice.

CARMEN

Boy, you really don't like her. I don't think I've ever heard you say something like that about somebody.

LAUREN

Shane, let me ask you a tough question. Was Jenny really that out-of-control while making that movie?

Shane pushes her refried beans around on her plate. She doesn’t want to answer.

CARMEN

If I may, I think I can translate what Shane is not saying. I can read her body language. She's trying hard not to say that yes, Jenny was out of control. She's trying hard not to say that Jenny was in full turbo diva mode. She had become corrupted by power and ego. Shane feels guilty, not because she had anything to do with Jenny being that way, but because she was powerless to stop it or even slow it down. Or even say anything out loud to Jenny. How am I doing? (SHANE won’t look up from her plate.) Shane says she realizes she totally fucked up her relationship with Molly, but that there was a chance to save it, if Jenny hadn't screwed it up by hiding the letter. Shane says she's still furious with Jenny, but because Jenny died only an hour or so after Shane found the letter she never had a chance to process all that anger. So it has been sitting inside her all this time, and it had no place to go. And then when Jenny was murdered, Shane naturally felt awful. Shane wonders if she had somehow been manipulated into become Jenny's lover, she doesn't know or why. She knows she was weak and let Jenny push her around. But then Jenny was murdered, and of course she's been grieving over that, as we all were and are. Shane says she feels guilty as hell because the person who betrayed her and manipulated her and made her feel like shit, and who potentially ruined her relationship with Molly, was dead. Magical thinking. For a split second she wanted Jenny to die, and then she did. So she's thinking it's her fault. That she caused Jenny to be murdered, because she was so angry at her at that moment. And of course, Shane being Shane, she turns all that anger inward, away from Jenny and onto herself. And now she realizes Alice is in jail for a crime she didn't commit, and she knows this to be true because she's the one who murdered Jenny, not in fact but just in her mind as wish fulfillment, and not a true, physical fact. She's guilty of thought-murder. Wish-murder. That's what Shane is not saying.

Tears stream down SHANE’s face. LAUREN stands, pulls Shane to her feet, and holds her while she sobs. The commissary is almost but a few people look over and then look away.

**EXT. A STREET IN THE STUDIO BACK LOT -- DAY**

CARMEN knows the studio's ins, outs, alleyways, streets and buildings and leads them from the commissary, behind a sound styage to a street filled with bandaged, wounded Nazi prisoners-of-war and a few dozen U.S. Army soldiers guarding them with unloaded, harmless rifles while they sun, drink smoothies and wait for the next shot. An SS STORMTROOPER with his arm in a sling greets CARMEN, waving his injured and fake-bloody hand.

SS STORMTROOPER

Hey, Carmen!

CARMEN

Eddie! Hey, how's it going? How's your mom? (Turns and walks backward)

SS STORMTROOPER

She's good. We lost Dad last year.

CARMEN

Oh, I'm so sorry. Give her a hug for me.

SS STORMTROOPER

Will do.

CARMEN

Better get that arm looked at.

He laughs and attempts a lame Nazi salute with it.

**INT. THE STUDIO MAIN OFFICE AND AARON’S OFFICE – DAY**

They turn a corner, cross the street and enter the main administrative offices. AARON’s suite is on the top floor, the fourth. It is large and well-appointed, but certainly not in the class of a Louis B. Mayer or a Jack Warner. They introduce themselves to a receptionist and are asked to seat themselves in the reception area.

LAUREN

This is nice, but not what I expected.

CARMEN

How so?

LAUREN

Not … extravagant. No Greek statues, Roman columns, tons of wealth showing everywhere. Gold-plated doorknobs. No Mona Lisa on the wall.

CARMEN

Aaron could certainly afford most of that if he wanted, but he's not that kind of movie exec. I'm sure he's got all the creature comforts he wants, but he's more modest than a lot of the people in this town, at least when it comes to flaunting it.

Aaron strides into the suite, trailed by another man. They wear sports coats but no neckties.

AARON

Hey, Shane, Carmen, good to see you again. You must be Detective Hancock. I'm Aaron Kornbluth, come on, everybody, let's go to my office. Deb, hold my calls. Oh, I'm sorry, folks, this is Howard Nichols, my CFO.

HOWARD

Hi, Howard Nichols. (Shakes hands with LAUREN.) Shane, I don't think we've met. I'm Howard Nichols. Carmen! We did meet, but you almost certainly don't remember, you were maybe 13 or 14, your Uncle Mike brought you onto the lot. I think we were shooting House of Horrors, and he was the lighting guy. Since it was dark and spooky, he didn't have much lighting to do.

CARMEN (laughs)

I remember it like yesterday. I apologize if I don't remember you, but that was the day Uncle Mike introduced me to Trevor Wilson and Bonnie Lane, and I had stars in my eyes all day long.

HOWARD

Did you get their autographs?

CARMEN

You know what? I still have them.

HOWARD

I believe it. Come on, we better get in there before Aaron gets arrested.

They go into AARON’s office, where CARMEN, LAUREN and SHANE sit on a large couch while AARON sits opposite them in a wing chair and HOWARD takes a seat at the side of the room.

AARON

You all had lunch? You need coffee or water or anything?

LAUREN

We're fine, thanks.

AARON

Okay, then. I took the liberty of inviting Howard, here, because he's my money guy, and I know from your interview with Adele this morning you were interested in the money angle.

LAUREN

Thanks. Yes, we are. Adele wasn't exactly sure, but she thought the studio lost about four to five million on Lez Girls, is that about right? (Deliberately pronounces Lez with the Z.)

HOWARD

It crept up to pretty close to five. The increase is mostly relatively minor costs for winding down production. Nothing unusual. And it would have been higher if we'd actually finished the movie and put it out there. We had nearly zero post-production costs, no editing, no sound, no music. No promotion and distribution.

LAUREN

Is there a ballpark estimate if you’d finished it?

HOWARD

Ballpark? Oh, seven, eight million, depending on how much promotion and advertising we would have given it.

LAUREN

How much would the studio have made on it? Really wild-ass ballpark.

HOWARD

Well, you know how that goes, it's really impossible to even guess. Some movies tank, and lose vast amounts of money. Then comes along some low-budget indie that grosses 300 mil. It's inexplicable.

LAUREN

But you must have had some expectations for Lez Girls, right? What's the term you use? You “green-lighted” it, right?

AARON (sighs)

If I'm wearing my publicity hat, my quote-for-the-press hat, then yes, we had high hopes, as we always do, as every studio always does. Now, taking those hats off and pouring myself a strong drink, not for attribution… well, no. I think Shane and maybe Carmen already heard the rumor that we got cold feet about the subject matter, lesbianism, and that we were trying pretty hard to re-focus it as best we could.

CARMEN

You chickened out.

AARON (sighs again)

Yeah, we did, but not for the reasons you think, and you're not gonna like the answer. We're off the record and not for attribution … but, no, not our finest moment. And I'm the big cheese here, I'm the head of the studio, and I take responsibility for the decision to water it down. Look, here's what happened. The early rushes we looked at, the first week or two of shooting, the rushes looked pretty good. The casting seemed pretty good, the acting was okay, the script raised some interesting questions, there were some likeable characters people could identify with. (Turns to HOWARD.) When did we first start changing our minds, Howard? Third week? Fourth?

HOWARD (shrugs)

Yes, in there. Definitely by the end of the fourth week, for certain.

AARON

It was going south. It happens. Some productions just collapse of their own weight, the actors hate each other, they hate the director, the director hates them, whatever. The script falls apart. There's no chemistry, or the chemistry goes to hell, same thing, you see that a lot. One of the key actors turns out to be having a bad week or a bad month, is getting a divorce or has a drinking problem, snorts too much blow. Or, hell, maybe they just can't act. They stink. Shit, there's a thousand reasons and a thousand ways.

LAUREN

So what was it with Lez Girls?

AARON looks away and won’t make eye contact.

LAUREN

Come on, we're all adults here. Whatever you say, it won't leave this room.

AARON

I feel bad saying it, with Shane in the room.

SHANE

You want me to leave? I'll wait outside.

LAUREN (quietly)

Stay where you are.

SHANE

I'll say it. I know what was wrong with Lez Girls. I know what Aaron doesn't want to say. It was the director. She didn't know what she was doing. She got in deeper and deeper and started floundering. She went into diva mode. She was fucking her star actress, the power and money went to her head. She was drunk on power, and drunk on pussy. She became a lunatic. A lunatic who was incompetent, who didn't know what she was doing. Her demons were running and ruining the production.

Long silence.

AARON

I didn't want to hurt your feelings.

SHANE

Thank you. I appreciate it. But I know she was heading off the rails. Maybe I knew it at the time, subconsciously, I don't know. My subconcious and I don't talk all that much.

AARON

Yes. What was happening off-screen, behind the scenes, all the crazy stuff. Jenny fucking Nikki, who we were still being told was straight. Christ, if we could have put half the offstage drama onto the screen we might have had a decent movie. Anyway, we're looking at the newer dailies and it's a mess. No other word for it. Scenes that don't make sense. Some truly awful dialogue. Jenny's got on her European auteur panties, thinks she's Jenny Luc Goddard or some fucking thing, there's these long moody shots that seem to be trying to show anguish on Nikki's face, but if you know Nikki, you can imagine what deep existential angst looks like on the face of a Valley Girl.

LAUREN

So then what happened?

AARON

I was getting reports from Adele, so we knew what was going on. The rushes only confirmed what she was telling us. Adele didn’t have too much more experience than Jenny did, but at least she wouldn’t be any worse than Jenny was getting. Then one Monday morning Adele comes in with this sex tape of Jenny and Nikki. So, hell, yeah, I pulled the trigger. Jenny out, Adele in. I did what I had to do to try to save a world class catastrophe about to explode. We stopped the PR nightmare, and the quality of the dalilies started improving. And then, after the wrap, the negatives were stolen and Jenny was murdered. So, back to the shitstorm.

**EXT. LASD CONFERENCE ROOM – DAY**

CARMEN enters; LAUREN is seated and working.

LAUREN

Shane just texted, she's on her way.

CARMEN

She must have had a romantic, candlelit evening. (Removes lid from her coffee and offers LAUREN a donut from the bag she'd brought.)

LAUREN

Thanks. Aren't we snarky this morning? So how was your weekend? I'm guessing not romantic and candlelit?

CARMEN

Hot and sweaty and wet, although not in the good way. I went for a run on the beach Saturday, did some gardening in my mom's backyard and got a blister on my hand, cleaned out her attic, helped with the cooking. Washed my car. Babysat for a couple hours for my sister and her husband. Watched Madame Secretary and went to bed.

LAUREN

No sex, huh? Too bad.

CARMEN

I never said no sex. (Sips coffee.)

LAUREN

Oh? Who was she?

CARMEN

I never said it was with anybody.

LAUREN (laughs)

Okay, I asked for that.

CARMEN

How about you?

LAUREN

Oh, my weekend was way more interesting, sensual and erotic than yours. Did the laundry. Food-shopped. Cleaned the apartment. Took some old clothes to Salvation Army. Went to the firing range, put a box of ammo into some paper targets. Went to the hardware store and got a replacement float valve for the toilet, which was running, and replaced the bad one. Started my period.

CARMEN

We hottie young lezzies lead such wild, orgy-filled, sex-crazed, one-orgasm-after-another lives.

LAUREN

I know. Did I mention my strap-on's in the shop? I took it in for its annual 5,000-mile checkup and oil change.

CARMEN

I've always said proper lube is important. When are you picking it up?

LAUREN

I don't know. They're putting it up on the rack. They want to check the ball joints.

CARMEN

Ball joints. That's good. Wish I'd thought of that. (They munch donuts, check their cell phones.) What are we doing today?

LAUREN

We start tracking down your old gang, set up interviews. Where is everybody, whose whereabouts do we know, who do we need to search for.

CARMEN

Let's see. (Consults her cell phone contacts.) We know Bette and Tina. I don't know if Shane knows, but Helena’s on some tiny hard-to-find island somewhere in the Greek archipelago, and basically out-of-touch. Alice we know, don't think she's going anywhere. I have Kit's address and phone, she's still here in town. Uh, who else? Nikki, no idea, Max, no idea.

LAUREN

Got Dylan?

CARMEN

Nope. I never met her.

LAUREN

Kelly?

CARMEN

No. Never met her, either.

LAUREN

Unless Shane knows, we'll have to ask Bette and Tina about Dylan.

CARMEN

I'd bet serious money they won't know.

LAUREN

Most likely not, but they are still our best shot at last known address, who they knew, where they lived, etc. They were both fairly public women. Google will find them for us.

CARMEN

And Nikki. We can get any tabloid to find out what rehab she's in this week.

LAUREN

You really don't like her, do you.

CARMEN

Well, in fairness, I never met her, but I heard all about her from Jenny, Alice and Tina, and I know how she fucked up everything with Jenny and Shane. And anyway, she's a terrible actress, not to mention a high-maintenance drama queen who can't survive without a posse. Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?

LAUREN

I'm glad we got that ambiguity cleared up. Do you want to call Tina or Bette now, while we're waiting?

CARMEN

No, Shane will want to be here to say hello. Mind if we wait? What else can we do?

LAUREN

Give me what you've got for contact info on Tina, Bette, Kit and Helena, just so I'll have it, then we can do some Google searches to find Dylan, Kelly, Max and Nikki. You take two and I'll take two. Who do you want?

CARMEN

Dylan and Nikki are in the film industry, and I know a lot of people in it, so I'll take them. You okay with Max and Kelly?

LAUREN

Sure.

They open their laptops and start Googling. After a minute:

LAUREN

Oh, shit.

CARMEN

What?

LAUREN

Max. He's dead.

CARMEN

What? How? When?

LAUREN

Looks like a year ago. I assume it's the same Max. It's a report from the online version of a newspaper in Bakersfield. Tell me if this is your guy. Here's what it says:

> Quote. The Kern County Sheriff's Office and the California Highway Patrol are asking for anyone with information concerning the hit-and-run death of Bakersfield resident Max E. Sweeney, 37, to call Detective Harry Collins at – blah blah. Sweeney's body was discovered by a passing long-haul truck driver early Friday morning off the southbound shoulder of the Golden State Highway parenthesis State Route 99 near Meadows Field Airport north of Bakersfield. Paragraph. The Sheriff's Office identified Sweeney as a computer programmer with an address at a Bakersfield boarding house. Melvin K. Hildebrand, owner of Fast Fix Golden State Computers, told investigators that his computer-repair company had only recently hired Sweeney as a repair technician, and didn't know much about him. He said Sweeney came to work on time, did his job and went home.
> 
> Paragraph. The coroner's division of the Kern County Sheriff's Department said Sweeney had a blood alcohol level above the legal limit for driving, and also had a small amount of a controlled substance in his bloodstream.
> 
> Paragraph. Detective Collins said they have not yet found Sweeney's car, which is registered with the California DMV as a 2006 Subaru Outback, license plate number blah blah. He said his office speculates that Sweeney's car may have broken down somewhere and that Sweeney was walking along the shoulder toward Bakersfield sometime after midnight Thursday night when he was struck by a southbound vehicle that didn't stop or report the incident. Collins said he interviewed the long-haul trucker who telephoned in the report of the body. Collins said the trucker was able to see the body because of his height above the roadbed and because it was a few minutes after sunrise when there was enough daylight to see well enough to identify it as a body. He said the truck driver is not a suspect and that forensic and other evidence showed the truck driver was several hundred miles north at the approximate time the hit-and-run occurred.

They sip coffee and think it over.

CARMEN

What do you think?

LAUREN

Nothing yet. But it's clear I need to make a bunch of phone calls to Bakersfield.

CARMEN

Think it's a coincidence?

LAUREN

Cops hate coincidences. But sometimes they happen. Let me see if I can find an obit.

CARMEN

Okay. I’m pretty certain nobody in our group knew about it. We'd have passed it around soon as we heard about it.

LAUREN

Got something. The Bakersfield Californian has an online version with an obituary section, and the search engine has a Max Sweeney, dated, let's see, two weeks after the hit-and-run. Quote. A brief memorial service was held Sunday afternoon at the Bakersfield Crematoria for Max E. Sweeny, 37, of Bakersfield, who was killed two weeks ago in a late-night hit-and-run on Golden State Highway. Paragraph. Sweeney was employ—

LAUREN stops as SHANE enters the conference room and sits down with her cup of coffee.

SHANE

Hey, good morning, guys, sorry I'm – (sees their faces) What?

LAUREN

It's Max. He's dead. A year ago, in a hit-and-run outside of Bakersfield.

SHANE

Fuck. (Takes top off her coffee lid and sips, blowing on it.) Fuck. How do you know?

LAUREN

We started searching for the old gang to contact them for interviews. We found it in a Google search. I was just reading the obit to Carmen.

SHANE

Can you start over?

LAUREN

Sure.

> Quote. A brief memorial service was held Sunday afternoon at the Bakersfield Crematoria for Max E. Sweeny, 37, of Bakersfield, who was killed two weeks ago in a late-night hit-and-run on Golden State Highway.
> 
> Paragraph. Sweeney was employed by Fast Fix Golden State Computers on Stockdale Highway. He was the parent of a two-year-old child, deceased, according to his former partner, Thomas J. Mater of Hollywood, the child's co-parent. Mater said Sweeney was born and raised in a small town near Skokie, Illinois, and moved to Los Angeles in 2006. Mater said Sweeney had no next-of-kin except for a sister named Maggie, from who he was estranged. Mater said he had had no contact with Sweeney for a year, but understood that Sweeney quote had issues unquote and was quote struggling unquote.

SHANE

Fuck.

LAUREN (reading)

> Quote. The Kern County Sheriff's Department said it was continuing its investigation of the hit-and-run, which it termed a quote suspicious vehicular homicide unquote. The Sheriff's Office said Sweeney's body was discovered by a truck driver shortly after sun-up by the side of the road near Meadows Field Airport. The Sheriff's Department believes Sweeney was struck and killed by a hit-and-run driver several hours earlier. Preliminary tests showed Sweeney had an elevated blood alcohol level as well as a controlled substance in his blood. The Sheriff's Department and coroner unit are awaiting the outcome of further lab and field tests.

Silence.

SHANE

That's it?

LAUREN

That's it, plus the news article we found online.

SHANE

What's that say?

LAUREN

Mostly the same. Max was apparently walking southbound on the shoulder of Route 99 north of town sometime after midnight on a Thursday night slash Friday morning, was hit by a vehicle that didn't stop. His body laid by the side of the road until a trucker saw it when the sun came up. Max had apparently been living in a boarding house in Bakersfield and working at some kind of computer repair shop. That's it.

SHANE

So what do you think?

LAUREN

I don't know what I think or what Carmen thinks, but I have a fair idea of what the Bakersfield cops think. For whatever reason, Max was walking home toward Bakersfield, or maybe even hitchhiking with his thumb out. He'd obviously been drinking and doing some kind of drugs. Once you know that the rest of it just writes itself. He staggered out into the roadway and got hit, mostly his fault, not the driver. That happens way more than you'd think, statistically. Second possibility he was on the shoulder walking forward or walking backward with his thumb out, either way he got hit. In either case, the driver panics and keeps going. Third possibility. Max is quote struggling unquote according to whatshisname, the partner—

SHANE

Yeah. Tom. I knew Tom.

LAUREN

According to Tom. Struggling, whatever that could mean. Physically, mentally, depression, job, love life, the entire ball of wax. Drunk, stoned, decides to put an end to his suffering steps out in front of a car or truck. Truck is better. That happens a lot, too, instead of suicide by cop it's suicide by 18-wheeler, whoever the next poor schmuck driving down the highway hauling avocados to San Diego happens to be. I'd rule out buses and trucks, though, because the drivers are professionals and if they hit somebody they tend to stop and report it. They all know about suiciders who step out in front, and they know things like eyewitnesses, lack of skid marks, alcohol tests and so on support them. They're doing sixty, seventy miles an hour, they have no reaction time, no way to jam on the brakes. They also know that if they don't stop, sooner or later paint chips and that kind of stuff can identify their vehicles, so the good drivers know there's no percentage in running away. They know it's not their fault and no point in running. Plus, if it’s a bus, they’ve probably got passengers, who are witnesses. Buses always stop and report, truckers almost always.

CARMEN

So who runs? Kids?

LAUREN

Sure, kids, but not only kids. It's what, one, two, three o'clock in the morning. Anybody who's been drinking and the very last things they want is take a breathalyzer test. You kill somebody even if it's not your fault, but you pull even a .03 or .04 and you're in the shit. Or your license or your mandatory insurance is expired. Or you're an undocu¬mented immigrant picking grapes. You're in your daddy's car and you know he's gonna freak you hit somebody with it, and you just know daddy's not gonna believe it wasn't your fault, because that's how daddy is. You're seventy-five years old and your children want you to hand over your keys because your night vision is failing. You've got 12 parking tickets. You've got twenty dime bags of weed in the trunk. You're on the way home with your 15-year-old girlfriend who is smoking your johnson when this guy jumps out in front of you. You are straight, sober John Q. Citizen but you were nodding off and then BAM! You don't even know what you hit, but you're wide awake now and too shit-scared to find out, so you keep going, hoping it was a junkyard dog or a deer. You're cheating on your wife and your girlfriend's in the car with you. You're a famous politician or sports star or celebrity, and you don't need the bad publicity.

SHANE

So … pretty much anybody.

LAUREN

Pretty much. And I haven't mentioned thrill killers. Every now and then there's some asshole out there who likes to scare the shit out of hitchhikers just for the hell of it. And sometimes they get too close and miss, which is to say, they hit them. Once in a while it's a straight-shot homicide, usually when there's some other assholes in the car egging the driver on.

SHANE

Nice. Fuck. Can I go home now?

LAUREN

You just got here.

SHANE

I know. I hate Monday mornings.

CARMEN

You hate all mornings.

LAUREN

You guys don’t seem too upset about Max.

CARMEN and SHANE look at each other.

CARMEN

Read between the lines.

SHANE

What work do you want me to do?

LAUREN

We were waiting for you to arrive before we called Bette and Tina in New York. We figured you'd want to be here for that. Then we'll need to track down Nikki, Helena, Dylan and Kelly, and you may have some idea where they are. I was gonna take two and Carmen take two, but now I've got to make a bunch of calls to Bakersfield, so how about you take Helena and Kelly?

SHANE

Sure. I've got old phone numbers and e-mails but I don't know if they're still good. But I can try them. You said we're calling Bette and Tina?

CARMEN

Yes, hang on a sec... (punches buttons on her cell phone.) I'm putting it on speakerphone.

**INT. BETTE AND TINA’S APARTMENT IN NEW YORK/INTERCUTTING BACK TO CONFERENCE ROOM -- DAY**

They hear it ring three times before TINA picks up.

TINA

Hey, Carmen. You home? What's up? How's your sex life? I need a vicarious thrill.

CARMEN

Before we go too far, you're on speakerphone, so the phone sex may have to wait. And I'm not home, I'm actually in LA. Shane's here, too—

TINA

Shane! Hey, girlfriend!

SHANE

Hey, Tina.

TINA

Uh, didn't quite expect both of you… um… you know….

CARMEN

It's a long story, and we've got a lot of news to tell you and Bette, starting off with some bad news. Have you got a minute to talk?

TINA

Just what I needed on a Monday, bad news. Actually, I have about three minutes before I have a lunch meeting. Go ahead, I'm sitting down.

CARMEN

It's Max. We think he's dead.

TINA

What? What happened?

CARMEN

Looks like a hit-and-run accident, almost two years ago. Apparently he moved to Bakersfield, and one night after midnight he was walking along some interstate and got clipped. They didn't find the body until daylight.

TINA (pause, sighs)

Well, shit. That's too bad. Max was never my favorite person, and not Bette's, either. Or yours. Or Shane's. But, you know, sad to hear it. But how are you guys, everybody else okay? Shane, I hear you're making a million bucks trimming celebrity twat, is that true?

SHANE

Yes, that's one nasty, salacious rumor I cannot deny. Not a million bucks, but an obscene amount. Hey, how's my little ballerina?

TINA

She's great. Oh, Shane, you should see her dance. Oh, Carmen. We go to her rehearsals and her dance classes and Bette and I have tears in our eyes. She's so light, so graceful, so ethereal. I mean, we're talking the next Misty Copeland. Carmen, I sent you a couple of videos I made with my phone.

CARMEN

I watch them over and over. Hey, look, I know you gotta run, but there's one more thing. We need to set up a time when we can Skype with you and Bette, as soon as possible, like maybe after work today, if we can. And I need to tell you there's a third person in the room with us right now. Detective Lauren Hancock of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, meet our friend Tina.

LAUREN

Hello, Tina. Good to finally meet you. I've heard a lot about you, all of it good.

TINA

Hi. Did you arrest Shane and Carmen? Do they need bail? Are they handcuffed? Please tell me they are handcuffed, it's always been one of my fantasies.

LAUREN

No. They're not under arrest. Not yet, anyway. I'll be happy to handcuff them, though, if it floats your boat. You want that before or after the strip search?

TINA

Oh, you know how to turn a girl on. Can I get a rain check on that? So what's going on?

CARMEN

Shane and I have teamed up with Detective Hancock to re-open the investigation into Jenny's murder. We're convinced Alice is innocent and we want to get her out of prison.

TINA

Of course Alice is innocent, everybody knows – damn, somebody's waving at me. I gotta go. I'll call Bette and get back to you soon as I can. I think we can Skype tonight.

CARMEN

Great. Go! Eat, mangia mangia, we'll talk later. Love you, bye!

TINA

You, too. Bye, Shane, bye, Lauren! (Hangs up)

LAUREN

Your friend sounds like a real trip. I'm really anxious to call Bakersfield now. Are you guys set on your research?

CARMEN

Yes.

Shane nods, yawns and opens her laptop. LAUREN looks up the number for the Kern County Sheriff's Department, dials her cell.

LAUREN

Detective Collins, please ... Detective Collins? This is Detective Lauren Hancock, Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Missing Persons Unit. I'm glad I caught you in the office … good, thanks. You have a minute to talk? I'm working an old case and just discovered by an Internet search you have a vehicular homicide from a year or two ago, a hit-and-run, I'm interested in. The vic was a Max Sweeny, Bakersfield resident, white male age 36… yes, that's him… oh, really? … uh huh … uh huh….

Shane and Carmen give up the pretense of doing their own work and listen to LAUREN's end of the conversation.

LAUREN

Uh huh … No shit? That's weird. Uh huh… Yes, I know about that. I can help clear that up, if you want. He was transgender, lived here in LA for four or five years, transitioned or was transitioning. Then had a baby, according to the obit I read … Yes, I know. Wait a minute, there's somebody here can answer that. (Turns to Shane and Carmen.) Do you know anything about Max getting top surgery?

CARMEN

He was going to get it, and we held a fundraiser for him to get it. But then things changed. As far as I know, up until the time of Jenny's death, he hadn't had it. Shane, do you know any different?

SHANE

No. We lost touch with Max right after ... you know … Jenny … and up until then he hadn't had it. Did he get it later on?

LAUREN

Coroner's report says he did. Detective Collins? Max apparently had the top surgery after he left LA, and my people here don't know anything about it. Is there any reason to think it was connected? … Okay … No, I understand … Nothing on the BOLO … Okay, I'm going to have to come up there and look at the book, can we set that up? How's your schedule? Okay … right. Yes, that'll work. Thanks ... My boss will call your boss … Thanks. See you then. (Hangs up.) Fuck.

CARMEN

What?

LAUREN

It wasn't hit-and-run. Not exactly, anyway. They've got it down as an open case, homicide. They think Max was deliberately run down and killed. And here's the really weird part. They think he was hit by his own car, and they never found it afterward.

SHANE

Fuck.

LAUREN (dials MARYBETH)

You got a minute? Something's come up. I've got to go to Bakersfield. We may have another murder.

**INT. MARYBETH’S OFFICE -- DAY**

They met MARYBETH in the hallway, coming toward them with a big china mug of coffee in her hand.

MARYBETH

Well, well, if it isn't the No. 1 Lady Lesbian's Detective Agency. Okay, Hancock, what have you guys got?

They all enter MARYBETH's office and LAUREN closes the door.

LAUREN

And a cheery Monday good morning to you, too, captain, my captain. We've got another murder, only we don't know if it's connected to our case or not.

MARYBETH

Who's dead? Everybody sit down.

LAUREN

Max Sweeny.

MARYBETH

Sweeny, Sweeny. Oh, yes, the tranny. The one nobody liked and he-she didn't like them much, either.

SHANE

That's a little harsh.

MARYBETH (ignores SHANE)

Tell me.

LAUREN

We wanted to start re-interviewing everyone who was there that night. We just now discovered that Sweeny is dead, killed in a deliberate hit-and-run on the outskirts of Bakersfield six months or so after the Schecter murder. He was walking along the side of a major interstate, possibly hitchhiking, sometime after midnight, drunk and stoned, according to the autopsy results. Somebody clipped him, they think on purpose. And here's the thing. Sweeny owned a car, an old Suburu beater, and nobody can find it, it's missing. Their forensic people think it may be the car that killed him.

MARYBETH

She was hit by her own car? He, his.

LAUREN

Looks like it, but at high speed. It didn't roll over her or anything like that. Bakersfield just gave me the headlines, not the details. I want to go read the reports myself, but that's the conclusion they came to.

MARYBETH

Who'd you talk to?

LAUREN

Kent County Sheriff's Office, the lead detective on the case named Collins. Sounded like he knew his stuff. Said it was an open, active homicide case. No leads, no suspect, no known motive.

MARYBETH

Why didn't we know about it?

LAUREN

I don't know yet, that's one of the things I want to find out. We only had a few minutes to talk. He never heard about Schecter, so he wants to talk to us about her. And we didn't know anything about his hit-and-run, so we need to talk to him.

MARYBETH

Road trip. Bakersfield's what, two hours north, more or less.

LAUREN

Yep. Hundred, hundred and ten miles. Two hours up, two hours back, and an overnighter.

MARYBETH

Yes.

CARMEN

Why overnight? I'm just curious, not nit-picking.

LAUREN

I want to walk the scene at midnight or later. See what the traffic is like. Look at it in daylight, too.

CARMEN

Got it. How'd you leave it with what's his name, Collins?

LAUREN

He's got stuff to do today but goes off shift at 4, and is willing to meet then, barring an unforeseen call-out. I said my captain would call his captain, just to square everything up. Here's the number. (Hands slip of paper to Marybeth.)

MARYBETH

Okay, good. You taking Nancy Drew and Miss Marple with you?

LAUREN

You guys coming along?

CARMEN

Wouldn't miss it. I’m Nancy Drew, right? And Shane’s Miss Marple.

SHANE

Uh, Chase and I have to go to a training session this afternoon, and then he's got me scheduled for a wine-and-cheese thing at one of the Sugar Shacks, 5 to 7 p.m. Who’s Miss Marple?

LAUREN

Save me some wine and cheese. Looks like you and me, Carmen.

CARMEN

Roger that. Copy. Ten-four. Isn’t that what you guys say?

LAUREN

We call dibs on who drives, who rides shotgun, and don't be a wise-ass.

MARYBETH

If the comedy's over get your asses out of my office and back to work.

LAUREN

I got one other thing, procedural. Shane, Carmen, can you give me a minute?

LAUREN holds the door open for them and they walk down the hall to the conference room.

LAUREN

How do you want to handle the paperwork? Up until now we were unofficial and off the books.

MARYBETH

Yes, I can't send you to Bakersfield to look at a homicide without some CYA for both of us. Look, here's what you do. See if Morales is willing to file a missing person's report, looking for Sweeny. Back-date it to Friday and start a file. From here on out we're on the record.

LAUREN

Got it.

MARYBETH

You only found out a little while ago Sweeny's dead, correct?

LAUREN

Correct. And I can log in my call to Bakersfield.

MARYBETH

Good. Make sure that's in the timeline. Sweeny missing first, discovered deceased second. Bakersfield call. If we did it the other way around the homicide team would be all over our asses.

LAUREN

I know. Got it covered.

**INT. LASD CONFERENCE ROOM -- DAY**

CARMEN (when LAUREN enters)

What's the plan?

LAUREN

Let's work until lunch, and then we'll grab something to eat and you and I can run home to pack an overnight bag and Shane can go do her thing with Chase. I'll pick you up at your mom's about one or one-thirty and we'll head out to Bakersfield. Sound good?

CARMEN

You want to come over to my mom’s for lunch?

LAUREN

Are you kidding? I wouldn't miss a meal at your mom's for anything. Marybeth wants me to get you to sign a Missing Persons request to find Max, back-dated to Friday. That covers our butts to investigate his murder.

CARMEN

Sure. Where do I sign?

LAUREN hands CARMEN a paper to fill out and sign.

SHANE

Can I ask a question? It doesn't matter, but why Carmen? Why not me? Or don't I want to know?

LAUREN

Marybeth and I think it would help to put a little distance between the Schecter case and you, on the one hand, and Max being killed in Bakersfield, on the other. Just in case.

SHANE

In case what? In case I did it? Ran him over?

LAUREN

Shane, no one thinks you did it. At some point we'll need to document your whereabouts for that night, if we can. Carmen hadn't seen Max in a couple of years, had moved to San Francisco, and was probably at sea when Max was killed. It just makes everything easier this way.

SHANE

You said, “if we can.” If we can document my whereabouts. What's that mean?

LAUREN

Nothing, I'm sorry I said it that way. All I meant was—

SHANE

I know what you meant. I was probably out fucking somebody whose name I don't even remember and there will be no way to figure out where I was or what I was doing.

CARMEN

Shane, stop this right now. Nobody's saying that. (They glare at each other.)

LAUREN

Okay, somebody tell me. What am I missing?

SHANE

Go ahead, tell her.

CARMEN

No.

Long silence.

SHANE

I once threatened Max.

LAUREN

Okay. Tell me.

SHANE

It was during the fundraiser we had for Max's top surgery. Like we told you, when he was taking the steroids Max was a lunatic sometimes, he flew into rages. Anyway, we were at the party, people all around, and he started manhandling Jenny. He had her by the arm, and they were bitching at each other over something.

LAUREN

What happened? You can say it.

SHANE

He let her go just as I came up to them. Jenny walked away, and I got in Max's face. I told him if he hurt Jenny I’d be the one who'd cut his tits off.

LAUREN laughs and Carmen grins.

SHANE

It's not funny.

LAUREN

Did anybody hear you threaten him?

SHANE (looks away)

I don't know.

CARMEN (quiet)

Shane.

SHANE

Carmen and Alice heard. Maybe Tina. But inside of two minutes everybody in the place knew I said it. Probably total strangers walking by on the street knew. Shane's gonna cut off Max's tits. We can give all the money back.

CARMEN

Okay, this has gone on far enough. First, it was never a serious threat, nobody thought Shane was gonna do anything, it was just a figure of speech. Second, they both got over it and three days later everybody forgot about it. It has no bearing on —

Carmen's cell phone chimes.

CARMEN

It's Tina. Hey, Tina, I'm putting you on speakerphone.

TINA (V.O.)

Hey, everybody. Shane and Lauren, right? I got hold of Bette and she flipped when she heard Max was dead. You really have us curious now, and we really wanna Skype you guys and get the low-down. Trouble is tonight after work is terrible, it's ballet lessons night for Miss Anjelica and her battalion of FDAs—

CARMEN

FDAs?

TINA

Future Divas of America. That's what we call them, and the parents are DRDs, Divas Raising Divas.

CARMEN

I'm sure you and Bette aren't divas.

TINA

Oh, goodness, no, two laid-back, relaxed, easy-going Type B personalities like Bette and me? Perish the thought.

CARMEN

Well, as it turns out, tonight is out for us, too. Lauren and I have to go to Bakersfield to talk to the police out there about Max, and Shane's got a Sugar Shack event.

SHANE

A wine-and-cheeser pussy pleaser. That's what Chase calls them.

CARMEN

Tomorrow may be way better anyway, since we'll have a lot more information to tell you by then.

TINA

How about we call you tomorrow to set something up for tomorrow afternoon or evening?

LAUREN

That'll work.

**INT. CARMEN’S MOTHER’S KITCHEN – DAY [OPTIONAL SCENE]**

CARMEN leads LAUREN to her mother’s kitchen, where MERCEDES is cooking.

MERCEDES

Detectiveev Hancock! (big hug) I'm so sorry! We ran all out of food yesterday. You and Carmen will just have to go to Taco Bell.

LAUREN (laughing)

Yeah, right. Come on, Carmen, I guess we'll just have to get something on the road.

CARMEN

Park your butt down in a dining room chair. One chimichanga or two? Refried beans?

LAUREN

One, and only half a helping of the beans. I'm driving.

CARMEN

Good point. No beans, mom, if we're going to be trapped in a car for a couple of hours.

MERCEDES

Nonsense. Just roll the windows down.

**INT. LAUREN’S CAR AND EXT., ROADSIDE OF I-99 NORTH OF BAKERSFIELD – DAY**

I-99 is a four-lane divided highway north of Meadows Field Airport. A wall of waist-high jersey barriers runs down the medium, separating the far two lanes of northbound traffic and a big John Deere farm equipment dealer a hundred yards down the road, just south of a place called Oil Junction. The landscape is flat, barren, dry, dusty, and occupied by farms of agricultural fertilizer tanks lined up row on road by high chain-link fencing, acres of earthmoving equipment, oil-refinery-type tanks, huge silos and loading storage facilities all competing with fields of oil-drilling equipment. There are huge lots of Class 6, 7, 8 and 9 truck tractors for sale. There are fields of flatbeds and several kinds of trailers, refrigerated, non-refrigerated, and for carrying livestock. Railroad tracks parallel the southbound side, as did long access roads here and there. To the south and a little east is the airport, where small planes and short-hop aircraft came and went, and on the far, far horizon beyond Bakersfield under a blue, cloudless sky the peak of Tehachapi Mountain guarded the southern entrance of the San Joaquin Valley from the Mojave Desert on the other side.

LAUREN is driving, CARMEN is in the back seat, and Detective Sgt. COLLINS is in the front passenger seat. They are headed southbound but are north of Bakersfield. COLLINS is a stocky man in his early 50s with a modest Zapata mustache. He has a Farmer John tan, deeply tanned face and a florid. He wears a light windbreaker, mainly to conceal the pistol on his belt, over a white shirt and khakis.

COLLINS

Okay, pull over here.

LAUREN put on her hazard flashers and pulls off the road onto the shoulder.

COLLINS

Be careful getting out. They'll clip you.

The shoulder was wide enough for LAUREN's cruiser. They get out.

LAUREN

Jesus. Is it always like this? (Trucks whizzing by)

COLLINS

Pretty much. It gets better after sunset, and finally slows down around ten or eleven at night. Then it's mostly truckers and drunks. Could be worse, though.

LAUREN

How's that?

COLLINS

Could be LA.

CARMEN

Got that right. At least this stuff is moving, not sitting still gridlocked.

COLLINS stands in front of the car and pulls two sheets of paper from a manila folder. The top one is a photocopy of a CSI map of the crime scene.

COLLINS

Just making sure my memory is correct. (Points.) There, at the base of the third stanchion.

A galvanized metal guardrail runs along the side of the highway back about fifteen feet from the shoulder to keep a vehicle going off the road and down a shallow embankment into a drainage ditch. On the far side of the guardrail but right next to it are clumps of tall bushes. There are gaps, and it is easy to see through to the flat plain on the other side. It is an open, vacant lot several hundred yards long, flanked on either side by chain-linked fencing where farm equipment was stored.

COLLINS

The body was right here. (Showing CSI sketch with body at base of third stanchion.) Tire marks were back there on the shoulder when the car came off the road to get him. It threw the body over here, maybe 50, 60 feet in the air. The body hit the guardrail, then fell down at the base of the stanchion. Here's a photograph, if you want to look at it.

COLLINS shows them another photocopy. CARMEN glances at it then quickly looks away. LAUREN studies it. All it showed was a dark lump of something that in poor light conditions wouldn't be recognizable. There is a smear of blood on the face of the guardrail.

LAUREN

If Max wasn't killed instantly by the vehicle, he died instantly when he flew into the guardrail. Either way, it was over in a second or two, no more.

COLLINS

Right.

LAUREN turns and looks back, and does a 360-degree turn.

LAUREN

Can you put it all together for me?

COLLINS

Sure. At first it looked simple. Phone call comes in at 7:40 to California Highway Patrol, trucker says he thinks he saw a body by the side of the road but isn't sure. Sun was well up, full daylight. Clear and sunny, no rain overnight. Morning traffic heavy but moving. No way he could stop and anyway nobody was going to do that, not on this stretch and not at that hour. But he's yakking on his Bluetooth, you know, and he's happy to leave his name, address, who he works for, where's he's coming from and where he's going, you know, making it crystal clear he's just a passing guy, but he's also fairly sure he saw what he saw, enough to make a phone call.

LAUREN

Right.

COLLINS

Right. And the CHP dispatcher can call up the name and license and all that right on her screen and it all checks out, he seems to be who he says he is, so she radios a patrol car to head southbound looking for a body between exits 37 and 31. Few minutes later the car reports in, I can give you the name and badge number if you need it—

LAUREN

Maybe later. Keep going.

COLLINS

So he says he found the body, and CHP calls Kern County, that's us, and we send out a full team. The forensics squad does their thing, body's cold, been dead several hours. Can't tell officially until the autopsy, yadda yadda, but they're sure the body has been hit by a vehicle, lots of broken bones, body is like a rag doll, arms and legs at funny angles. Maybe average layman couldn't tell, but the forensics people have seen enough people hit by cars. No signs of foul play that can't be explained by being hit by a vehicle, no obvious gunshot wounds or strangulation marks, nothing like that. So they tell CHP and our guys what they think, with all the preliminary disclaimers. And then they say something else, the first odd thing or rather the first thing that became odd in retrospect. They say there's a heavy smell of vomit around the mouth, and some vomit on the chest, down the front of the guy's jacket. By this time the accident recreation people have found tire tracks, and they've got cones out blocking the right-hand lane, and traffic's backed up for a mile, but it can't be helped. And they all pow-wow and they don't like what they see, looks like the vehicle came off the roadway to clip the guy, so they say, let's get a homicide team out here, pretty standard CYA if you suspect homicide, all that—

LAUREN

Right, right. I worked homicide for a couple years before I went to Missing Persons.

COLLINS

Then you know the drill. My partner and I get the call-out, we arrive on the scene and get briefed. The tech says the vic vomited all down his front, and was probably drunk, but they'll need the tests, the smell of vomit has covered up the smell of booze, so they don't really know. So we talk about a drunk walking down the road or hitchhiking and gets clipped, happens all the time, but the tire tracks seem to show the vehicle came off the road, suggesting the vic didn't stumble out into the road accidentally or in a suicide attempt, which also happens sometimes. Where did he do his drinking? Ain't no bars north of here for a long ways, all farmland, mostly. Only bars to the south down by the airport for the closest, and that's just plain the wrong direction. Vic was walking toward them, not away from. So my partner says, okay, if he puked, where did he puke? Maybe that will tell us something. And the techs say they walked a hundred yards up and down the road and didn't find anything, which seems a little odd but okay, he threw up somewhere else, maybe wherever he was drinking, but we start talking about if you're drunk enough to puke all down your front, how drunk were you and how did you get here midway between two exits six miles apart on a four-lane, high-speed divided highway and there's no bars around. Where was he coming and from and where was he going to, and why was he walking instead of driving. So we don't have much of anything, but what little we have we just don't like, you know?

LAUREN

Sure, one of those instinct things. You don't know why something's not right, but it’s not right.

COLLINS

Yep. So we expand the search perimeter for the puke, we send the CHP guy southbound for half a mile on foot, and my partner and I go north. And my partner says he'll cross over the four lanes and walk up the northbound side, because we don't know where the vic was coming from, maybe he was going northbound, said fuck it, crossed over and started southbound. So anyway we start walking, and sure enough half a mile up the road on the northbound shoulder my partner smells puke and finds a puddle, and we send a tech up and the tech takes a sample. Took a few days for the labs to come back, but it was the same as on the front of the guy, stomach contents matched, all that. It was Sweeney's vomit.

LAUREN

So you have Max half a mile north on the northbound shoulder puking his guts out some short period of time before he's struck and killed off the southbound shoulder.

COLLINS

Right.

LAUREN

And no other signs of foul play, no signs of robbery?

COLLINS

Nothing. Wallet and ID in the hip pocket, fourteen bucks in it. We found out later Sweeney didn't make a lot of money, so fourteen bucks in his wallet wasn't suspicious. No car keys and no house keys. If you don't own a car, no car keys isn't suspicious. It only becomes suspicious much later when you learn the vic actually did own a car.

LAUREN

So it's all up to the forensics reports and ID checks to come back. Blood test, stomach contents, puke, autopsy broken bones, paint chips from the striking vehicle, tire tracks, all that.

COLLINS

Right. But the next surprise rolls in that night from the coroner's division. The autopsy was still a day away but they undressed the body to put in a cold storage locker and discovered this Max Sweeney was a tranny, and did we know that? And I said no, we didn't know.

CARMEN

What did you make of that?

COLLINS

Not much. I guess twenty, thirty years ago we'd have said, Holy shit, but not today. Nothing surprises us anymore, you know? Gay, straight, tats, piercings, body sculpting. If you think being two hours out of LA has somehow protected us from the freak shows you'd be wrong. It's a freak world, is what it is. I'm not saying a tranny is a freak, that's not what I'm saying—

CARMEN

Just seen it all, no surprises.

COLLINS

That's right.

LAUREN

Did you think that might be part of a motive for a homicide?

COLLINS

Not really. The thing is, the killer would probably have to know the vic pretty well to know he was a tranny, right? But most people are murdered by someone who knows them pretty well anyway, so that just simply leaves us back where we started. So, no, Sweeney being a transman – I understand that's the correct term — didn't mean much, just one of a dozen things to keep in mind.

LAUREN

So then what happened?

COLLINS

Routine stuff while we waited for all the ID, lab work and autopsy stuff. We interviewed the place where he worked, didn't turn up much. He lived in a rooming house, nothing much there, same story both places, moved into Bakersfield about four months earlier, kept to himself, pretty quiet, no trouble, no particular sign of booze or drugs, not very friendly but nothing out of the ordinary. Nobody knew he was trans, and we didn't run across anyone who seemed to care one way or the other. We searched his room at the boarding house, found nothing unusual until we came to his birth certificate under the name Moira Sweeney, but by then we knew anyway. The next surprise was the car. Traffic records told us he had one registered and currently updated with no wants or warrants, and both his landlord and the guy who owned the computer shop confirmed Sweeney had a car, an old blue Subaru beater, and his boss was pretty sure he'd driven it to work the day he died. So we started looking for it, put out a BOLO, and started calling used car lots and junkyards and repair shops to see if it had broken down anywhere or Sweeney had sold it, but we got nothing. Of course you don't know you've got nothing for a week or two until nothing has come in. And we found no car keys and no keys to his boarding house or room, if any, and no work keys, if he had any. A few days later the insurance company check comes back. Sweeney had car insurance, paid up, in force, nothing unusual.

LAUREN

Any gay bars in Bakersfield?

COLLINS

One. The Casablanca on N Street. They have karaoke and drag shows once in a while. Ten-dollar cover charge. Couple others closed a few years ago. Bakersfield ain't exactly the Castro District, you know? Anyway, we actually went to the Casa and showed Sweeney's photo from his DMV file, and got zip. One bartender thought maybe Sweeney'd been in, but not recently and certainly not the night before, so far as he knew. They have a couple security guys who work the door, but they didn't recognize him. If Sweeney didn't have much money I think the ten-dollar cover would have kept him out. So, nothing, although we checked. (Pause) Don't take this the wrong way, but we also ran his photo past the vice squad, see if he'd been picked up in a men's room or whatever. But they had nothing.

LAUREN

Due diligence, no problem. Then what?

COLLINS

First thing to come back was blood alcohol, which registered point 18 at time of death, more than twice the legal limit for driving, but it just confirmed what we already suspected, so no help there. Time-of-death finalized at about 3:30 a.m.—

LAUREN

Ninety minutes after any bars would have closed. If you were going to puke you'd do it sooner than 90 minutes after you left the bar. Unless you drink after the bar closes.

COLLINS

Right, and that becomes important in a minute. Tox screen comes in, shows some oxy in his system.

CARMEN

A lot?

COLLINS

We'll get there.

LAUREN

I've got an idea. I've seen all I need to see in daylight, and my partner and I are getting hungry. Let's go find a restaurant where we can talk. We haven't even begun to talk about the Schecter end of the case. Where would you recommend we go?

COLLINS

You gals on per diem?

LAUREN

Don't worry about it. We're meat and potatoes people.

COLLINS

Okay, then. I got just the place.

LAUREN and COLLINS go back to the car. CARMEN stares at the spot where Max's body had lain for several hours in the dark, at the base of a guardrail stanchion.

**INT. THE PADRE HOTEL DINING ROOM – EVENING**

COLLINS guides LAUREN to the Padre Hotel on 18th Street in downtown Bakersfield, a few blocks from the detective division where he'd left his car. They wait for a maitre'd to seat them in the Belvedere Room.

COLLINS

Great food here. It's basically an upscale steakhouse, but you can rely on the seafood, if you swing that way.

LAUREN and CARMEN glance at each other. COLLINS is looking the other way.

CARMEN

Don't you need a reservation for a place like this?

COLLINS

Yes, but they know me here, and there's the perks of carrying a badge, you know how that goes, right?

CARMEN

Copy that.

A waiter takes their orders.

COLLINS

Okay, let's get this over before the food comes. Autopsy and stomach contents. One of the cutters comes into the squad room with his report and hands it to me, then makes himself at home in my chair. “You're gonna have questions,” he says. So I start reading. Long story short, Sweeney vomited because he had drunk a large quantity of vodka in a very, very short time, maybe half to three quarters of a bottle, but hard to tell since he puked it up. But enough to register that point one-eight on the test, and it was rising quick. No way to tell how high it might have gone.

LAUREN

High enough to kill him?

COLLINS

I asked. Hard to tell all by itself, the coroner says, but there's more. Sweeney had chased the vodka with maybe a dozen oxycontins. There was still vodka and some pill slush left in his stomach, probably not enough to kill him, because he'd puked a lot of it. The puke on the ground was way high in oxy. He’d puked up pills that weren’t fully digested.

CARMEN

Jesus.

LAUREN

So what did your guy think? Suicide attempt?

COLLINS

Sure, and who wouldn't? But our guy is pretty good. He tests the fingers.

LAUREN

Ahh. Max stuck his fingers down his throat, he made himself puke all the stuff in his stomach.

CARMEN

Because he changed his mind about suicide?

COLLINS

That's one possibility. But the other possibility is he was forced to drink the vodka and swallow the pills under duress, because somebody was trying to kill him with booze and drugs.

LAUREN

And if he doesn't collapse and die by the side of the road in the middle of the night, he staggers into the path of an 18-wheeler, same difference, mission accomplished.

CARMEN

That's grotesque.

COLLINS

We have a theory, if you want to hear it. It ties in with the car.

LAUREN

Go.

COLLINS

Suppose it's not suicide, but homicide, like we think. Where's Sweeney's car? How did he get out there? How was he able to drive if he'd swallowed that much vodka? How could he make his own car disappear, which it has, and why would he even bother if he was trying to kill himself? Fuck the car, right? Who gives a shit. But it's almost two years later, and we still haven't found it, although I know where it is.

LAUREN

Where?

COLLINS

Hang on, we'll get there. Sorry to tease you, but I like to tell it my own way, in sequence.

LAUREN

Okay.

COLLINS

So it's a homicide, because we need somebody to get Sweeney out there and then make the car disappear. So my theory is, Sweeney is the passenger in his own car, and the killer is driving it. Someway, somehow, at some unknown location and for whatever reason, the killer gets Sweeney to drink most of a bottle of vodka and swallow a handful of commonly available, untraceable pills. My guess is the killer has a gun, because why else would anybody go along willingly? So they are in the car heading north on the 99—

CARMEN

North, out of Bakersfield.

COLLINS

Right. You see the problem.

CARMEN

Why north?

COLLINS

Four hundred and fifty miles of wide-open farmland and oil fields to dispose of a body, let it rot for a few days or weeks or months in the sun before anybody finds it.

CARMEN

Okay.

[During the following discussion, there is the option of flashback shots demonstrating the plot points, with MAX fleeing the vehicle, as long as it never shows the killer, even by gender.]

COLLINS (their salads arrive)

I know. You're dotting the eyes and crossing the tees. So anyway, they're heading north and in the car Sweeney puts his fingers down his throat and starts to puke. That wasn't supposed to happen and now it's a problem.

CARMEN

Because…?

LAUREN

Because the puke is on the passenger side. It wouldn't matter if it was on the driver's side. But it proves Max wasn't driving.

COLLINS (his ribeye arrives)

Bingo. Go ahead, Hancock. Finish it up. (He digs in)

LAUREN

The driver slams on the brakes and pulls over. Max jumps out of the car, maybe sick, maybe trying to get away, or both. It's pitch black except for headlights, if there's anything coming, and if the killer gets out of the car and tries to shoot Max, it ruins the suicide/traffic accident scenario— (her food arrives)

CARMEN

And Max might have been able to run far enough in the darkness. He ran south behind the car, to get out of the headlights. (Her food arrives)

COLLINS (chewing)

Max has lived here long enough to know it's a divided highway and his only chance is to cross over to the southbound side where the driver can't do a U-turn without going a few miles up the road.

CARMEN

Why not run inland, away from the highway?

COLLINS

Chain link fence, and an access road. Crossing the highway was the smarter move.

LAUREN

And before he crosses, he pukes again, getting rid of the vodka and pills, if he can. Of course, he's already half-drunk and maybe woozy.

COLLINS

Yes, and maybe there's traffic, trucks coming by, and that means the killer can't do anything until they pass, and it gives your guy the opportunity to puke, then cross the road.

LAUREN

So Max crosses to the southbound side, and starts walking south. Meanwhile the killer drives up to Exit 37 and comes back southbound, or illegally uses the crossover still a ways up. He sees Max walking and comes over onto the shoulder and runs him down. Was Max facing the car or facing away?

COLLINS

Facing the car. He saw it coming. Maybe he'd been hitchhiking, maybe not, but it got him and threw him fifty, sixty feet in the air into the guardrail.

CARMEN

I hope he was drunk enough not to know what was about to happen.

LAUREN

We'll never know.

Collins grunts, cutting another piece of steak.

CARMEN

You said you know where the car is.

COLLINS (chewing)

Hancock?

LAUREN

It's out there somewhere in the Central Valley. In some arroyo. Some junkyard. Probably torched.

COLLINS

Count on it. Fire destroys the driver's fingerprints, destroys the puke, destroys any other useful forensics. And before the killer sets it on fire he or she removes the license plates and any other identifying stuff that might survive a fire. Probably can't even tell it was once a blue Subaru. It'll still have the VIN numbers, but nobody who comes across it will go to the trouble of looking it up. It'll just be another burned-out wreck out there, with hundreds of others. Who knows? Maybe it's already been found and the torched remains sold to a junkyard for $10 as scrap. The car is not only missing, it may not even exist anymore.

CARMEN

How much of this theory can be proved in court?.

COLLINS

Not much. We can't prove it was his own car that hit him, even though I'm dead certain it was, because the lab guys have paint chips from a blue Subaru from that paint batch, which covers about two years, and we have tire tracks from tires that might have come from Sweeney's car, but we don't have the car itself to match them with, and my guess is we never will. But the accident reconstruction guys tell us in a report I photocopied into your folder that the wheelbase of the vehicle that came off the highway was a about a hundred and four inches and front tires about 57 inches apart. Guess what the wheelbase and tire distance of a 2002 Subaru Outback is? So my theory remains just a theory. You guys aren't eating much. You want dessert?

They shake their heads no.

COLLINS

Why don't you give me your folder on the Schecter case and I'll start reading while you guys finish eating.

LAUREN hands him the manila folder with the photocopied pages from the Schecter murder book. He reads parts, going from page to page, while they eat.

COLLINS

Interesting. Great timeline.

LAUREN

Thanks. So what do you think?

COLLINS

Well, there's not a shred of evidence connecting our two murders except that Sweeney was present at the first one. I don't have to tell you cops hate coincidences. I never met a cop who didn't.

LAUREN

You still haven't.

COLLINS

So what I think is, your unsub did both.

CARMEN

Rollo Tomasi.

LAUREN

He’s the sunsub—

COLLINS

\--in LA Confidential. Great flick.

CARMEN

  1. My Uncle Mike worked on it. He was an electrician on the lighting team. I was in high school. Ever since, all my unsubs are named Rollo Tomasi. Why do you think it's the same person?



COLLINS

Because we have a pattern.

LAUREN

That's what I thought, too. (to Carmen) You see it?

CARMEN

Both were half-assed attempts to make them look like accidents.

LAUREN

You get an A plus, grasshopper. I'm not convinced the Schecter murder was premeditated, but once Jenny fell off the deck, the killer deliberately rolled her into the pool. That had to be spontaneous.

COLLINS

Sweeney's a little different, but has some similarities. Pre-meditation all over the place, but it went south at the last minute, Sweeney puking in the car then escaping, if my guess is right, and having to be run down on the shoulder of the highway instead of a booze-and-drug overdose suicide or pedestrian accident.

LAUREN

And then the killer had to find a way to get rid of the car, which wasn’t part of the plan.

COLLINS

Which means we can build a pretty good picture of the killer. Want me to start?

LAUREN

Go for it.

COLLINS

Pretty quick-witted. Maybe not smart, but certainly cunning. Thinks fast on his or her feet. Doesn't panic, very cool customer. Able to improvise. Resourceful. Seizes opportunities. Acts decisively when necessary.

LAUREN

Kills without compunction.

CARMEN

A serial killer?

LAUREN

I'm not seeing that. Yes, the killer is a sociopath, almost certainly has no conscience, but that's not the same thing. I still think Jenny's murder was spontaneous. Worst case, Max's murder has some tie-in to Jenny, but we just don't know what it is yet, because we haven't looked into it and haven't found it. But I know what you’re worrying about. Somebody is or was stalking the group of eight women who were there that night, because now a quarter of them are dead. Who's next? Is that what you were thinking?

CARMEN

Yes.

COLLINS

Tell me about the group. Have you re-interviewed all of them?

LAUREN

Not yet. We just started tracking them down when we ran across Sweeney's homicide.

COLLINS

Just as well. You'd just have to go back and talk to them again in light of this new information.

CARMEN

Excuse me, I've got to go to the ladies room. Lauren, I'll take a coffee if the waiter comes by. (Leaves the table)

COLLINS (waits until she’s left)

I take it your partner's new?

LAUREN

Trainee. Cadet. New mentoring program, one of those things.

COLLINS

She even graduate from the academy?

LAUREN

Not yet.

COLLINS

She's not carrying a gun.

LAUREN

No, she hasn't qualified at the range yet.

COLLINS

I figured. One of those affirmative action things, I bet. She don’t hurt the eyes. She banging somebody upstairs?

LAUREN

Uh, no, she's still getting over a relationship. She was engaged to be married, and it fell apart at the last minute.

COLLINS

I had a couple of them, but they usually fell apart after I got married, not before. That way the exes get to keep big parts of my salary. My third one seems to be sticking.

LAUREN

Three's a charm. In Carmen's defense, she's pretty smart, and she learns fast. And she's not political, not a department climber or ass-kisser. What you see is what you get. I could have done a lot worse.

COLLINS

Yeah, I guess.

CARMEN (returns)

What did I miss? (Puts cream and Sweet-and-Low in her coffee.)

LAUREN

Nothing, just waiting for you.

COLLINS

Give me your overview of the Schecter thing.

LAUREN

Eight women in West Hollywood having a wine-and-cheese goodbye party for two of them, who were in the process of moving to New York. It was at their house, nice place, backyard pool. White collar professionals, good to very good incomes—

COLLINS

All lesbians?

LAUREN

No. Some were, some weren't, some bi.

COLLINS

Just asking.

LAUREN

Understood. Schecter was next-door neighbor and the one organizing the party, she was putting together a farewell goodbye tape. The whole group had known each other for quite some time, no strangers, nobody new to the group.

COLLINS

I'm guessing history among them.

LAUREN

Sure, that's a given, especially in a tight-knit lesbian community. And as it happens, everybody there was pissed at Schecter for one thing or another she had done or said. So yes, lots of anger at Schecter, maybe motives for murder, but having said that, only a few possibly strong enough for drowning somebody.

COLLINS

Yeah, but we both know people will kill each other over a torn two-dollar bill, let alone anything we'd consider a big deal.

LAUREN

Yes, we know. All we're saying is, everyone pissed at her, and two or three very, very pissed, but nothing so glaringly strong that any one person stood out.

COLLINS

But you have a confession from the one up at Humboldt.

LAUREN

We do, and that's a major problem. We have lots of evidence she didn't do it and was covering up for somebody, and it backfired on her. Also, the investigation was short-circuited by the confession, and we've since found one other very strong suspect who was never properly investigated, and maybe a couple more. One of our stronger suspects from the group was Sweeney. The one up in Humboldt couldn’t have killed him.

COLLINS

She the strongest suspect? Not whatshername at Humboldt?

LAUREN

Her name is Alice Pieszecki. Worst case, I'd rank her as maybe fifth or sixth suspect.

CARMEN

She'd have been near the back of the line. The problem is, there was a line.

COLLINS

Schecter was fucking the roommate, right? Significant other's always your best suspect 80, 90 percent of the time.

LAUREN

First thing we looked at, but this time we're pretty certain this is one of the 10 percenters.

COLLINS

Okay, but what about Sweeney? This guy, Tom. The ex, the father of Sweeney's baby.

LAUREN

Didn't you guys take a look at him back when Max got run down? (Collins shifts uncomfortably.) Oh, shit. You might as well tell us.

COLLINS

Yeah, I know. See, about two weeks after the Sweeney murder I went on vacation. My wife and me, and our daughter and son-in-law. We took this cruise to Hawaii. We've been planning it for years. Cruise to and from, cruise around, land tours, the whole thing. Cost a small fortune, but worth every penny. We signed up a year ahead, and it was all booked and paid for eight months in advance. I had plenty of vacation time, and scheduled it long, long in advance. What I'm saying is, Osama bin Laden could have parachuted into Bakersfield along with Bonnie and Clyde and the Russian mob, but my wife and me and Betty Lou and Frank, we were getting on that fucking boat in Long Beach that particular morning and going to Hawaii, you get what I'm saying? If it sounds like I'm apologizing I'm not. But we were getting on that boat, that's all there was to it.

CARMEN

We understand. You don't need to justify it. You went on vacation. You're entitled.

COLLINS

Thank you. So what I'm saying is, right about the time I went, the forensic stuff starts to trickle in, a piece here, a piece there. Background checks. Fingerprints, wants and warrants, no BOLO results on the car, CHP reconstruction report of the crime scene. Tire marks. It was twelve days before we were able to look at it well enough to say, okay, this is a murder, this is deliberate vehicular homicide, not a suicide, not some kind of accident. And you know all the stuff about solving homicides, the first 48 hours, blah blah blah.

LAUREN

Yes, most get solved in the first 48 hours, and after that the trail starts going cold.

COLLINS

Right. You see that on TV all the time, and it's one of the few things they ever get right. So my point is, but the time we see it's a homicide the fucker is already almost two weeks old.

LAUREN

Right. And you're about to head out of town.

COLLINS

For three weeks. Yes, we weren't running down to Tahoe for a long weekend. I'm out three weeks, and they give my partner, who was almost brand new to homicide himself, a temporary partner, and the two of them take over just as I leave town.

LAUREN

We get it.

Collins pushed a piece of pie crust around on his dessert plate.

LAUREN

Hold up. Before you go on, let me tell you this. We fucked up the Schecter murder investigation. I tell you this cop to cop. We blew it. Some of it was just the circumstances, just like you going on vacation. And some of it was we just simply blew it. The lead was my boss, Marybeth Duffy. She knows she blew it, and admits it, and feels like shit because of it. And I love her to death and would still follow her anywhere, she's the best cop I know or ever met, and wouldn't want to work for any other boss, not ever. But all that said, she had a bad day and she fucked up, that's all. We all have bad days, and we have to move on. Who knows, maybe they even make us better. So, if you want to tell us your people fucked up, you're in safe company.

COLLINS

Not just my people. Me, too. I was lead. Some of it is on me.

LAUREN

Fair enough. Tell it.

COLLINS

I'm not sure how to start. I don't want to say the wrong thing, or say it the wrong way, and I don't want to offend anybody. But I'm just a street cop from Bakersfield, okay? I'm not a big city guy. There's a lot of stuff I don't know shit from shinola about. My wife will tell you, I'm not the most enlightened guy in the world. I am who I am, that's all. So what I'm saying is, I don't know anything about this transgender thing. What I know about the gays and the lesbians might just fill a good-sized coffee cup, but what I know about the trans thing wouldn't fill a tenth of a shotglass. I mean, I see the stuff on television, you know, sex change operations and men becoming women and women becoming men, and … how can I say this? … it's all just, like, noise. I mean, I hear it, I see it, but I just have no idea what they're talking about. Bruce Jenner, or whatever she calls herself now. That Ru-Paul guy. Even down at the Casa, those drag queens. So maybe what I'm telling you is, when we found out about Sweeney, well, I just plain didn't know what to do with it. Was he a man? Was he a woman? He was a man who had a baby? He was a lesbian who fucked a guy? A guy got knocked up? I mean, frankly, and I hope I'm not offending anybody, but I just plain didn't know what to do with it. Meaning him, or her, or whatever. You get what I'm saying? Am I wrong-footing here?

LAUREN

You're doing okay. No one says it isn't complicated.

COLLINS

I hesitate to ask … do either of you know about this stuff? The tranny thing? Transgender, transman, whatever you call it?

CARMEN

We know some. We know a few people who are transgender.

LAUREN

What you're saying is, when you were told Max was transgendered, you didn't know exactly how to proceed.

COLLINS

Yes. I mean, we categorize people all the time. Dead prostitute, you know what to do, what to look for. Dead housewife? Piece of cake, sweat the hubby. Dead husband? Same thing, sweat the wife. Dead girlfriend? Dead boss? Dead gangbanger, dead liquor store owner, dead gambler, dead rich guy? Even a dead cop. Maybe especially a dead cop. But those categories, those homicides, you get the call-out and pretty much you know what to do almost from the moment you get to the crime scene. But a dead tranny lying by the side of the road at 3 a.m., full of drugs and booze? Yeah, we fucked up. I tell myself, it wasn't because he was trans whatever. I tell myself it was because I just didn't know what to do next. Who to talk to, who to look at, beyond the obvious landlord and job supervisor. And the forensics dribbles in over two weeks and then I go on vacation, and my partner and his temp partner take over, and I admit, I said to myself, thank god, because I don't want this case and I don't know what I'm doing, and the next three weeks it's all their problem and not mine. And no, I don't feel good about that, but there it is. I was happy as hell to be heading to Hawaii, to get the case off my hands.

LAUREN

So what happened next?

COLLINS

The coroner releases the body. The sister comes in from someplace in Illinois and the ex-boyfriend who knocked her up, he comes in from LA, and they hold some sort of service at the funeral home. I am literally at home packing my bags for Hawaii and I am on leave and couldn't care less, Baxter and Gomez have the case. I get back three weeks later, the case is colder than a frosty Coors light. They interview the boyfriend, he says he knows nothing, gives them an alibi where he was the night Sweeney got run down, and guess what, home alone in bed asleep, went to work the next morning. The sister from Illinois hasn't spoken to Sweeney in years, they don't get along, the sister isn't crazy about gay people in general but tolerated Sweeney being a lesbian, but the tranny thing, well, that was some kind of deal-breaker for her. Bitches about the cost of flying out to Bakersfield. Tells the boyfriend you pay for the funeral, the boyfriend says no way, the funeral home throws them both out on the street, cops come, break up the catfight but nobody wants to press charges, especially the funeral home, because the last thing they want is a newspaper story about a riot at a tranny funeral. Jesus Christ. Three, four days later I'm on a tour of Pearl Harbor, we go out to the Arizona, sunk in the harbor, you know? I get a text from Baxter, guess what, we just found out the tranny had a baby that died from SIDS in a foster home. I text him back, go check it out and don't text me anything until I get back, with one of those smiley emo-whatchamacallit things. There's one with the middle finger raised. So, short story long, that's what happened. We didn't know in a timely fashion what we had, we didn't really know what to do with it, and like people say, it fell through the cracks because we let it do exactly that. We never learned anything about the Schecter thing, and we never contacted anybody in LA because we didn't know anything about LA or Sweeney's life there. We had an LA ex-boyfriend and some weird stuff about a baby. Baxter and Gomez looked at it, but there was nothing. My mistake was I let it ride, I accepted their work, because that was the easiest thing to do. And then, you know, another case comes along, and another, and another, and the file goes into a filing cabinet, and its sits there untouched for who-fucking-knows forever.

Collins signaled to the waiter for more coffee.

COLLINS

Let me ask you. Sweeney was a guy, sort of, but had a baby. How does that work? In my whole life, I never heard of such a thing.

CARMEN

Well, it sort of works like this. One reason you never heard of it is because it's pretty rare, but it has happened, and usually on purpose. Usually when a woman is transitioning she starts taking testosterone, and Max was, starting in January or February 2006. Apparently it was black market hormones. Because he couldn't afford to go to a legitimate doctor—

COLLINS

Who's your source on this?

CARMEN

Shane and Alice.

COLLINS

Who?

CARMEN

Shane McCutcheon and Alice Pieszecki. They're in your paperwork we gave you. Alice is the one in jail on what we believe is the false confession. McCutcheon was Schecter's girlfriend at the time of her murder. They both had known Max from the time they came out to LA in 2005.

COLLINS

Okay. Go on.

CARMEN

The testosterone treatments really screwed up Max's emotions. He would go into rages and was often out-of-control. He wanted to get what's called top surgery, that's basically when a surgeon removes the breasts. It's a mastectomy without the cancer. Max wanted it but couldn't afford it, any more than he could afford proper testosterone therapy. He and Schecter were in a relationship but it broke up, in part because he was treating her badly, she was treating him badly, and she cheated on him with a woman she met in Canada. He kind of cheated on her, too, with a gay guy they met briefly where they hung out. Jenny walked in on Max giving the guy a BJ, but Jenny said go ahead, she didn't give a damn. A year or two later Max had a relationship with a woman who didn't know Max was a woman, too; he had a mustache and was pretty masculine, but he still had a vagina and uterus. That relationship went badly, too, when she finally found out. So a year or two later, Max met this guy Tom, and apparently got pregnant by him unintentionally, somewhere around September or October 2008. They fought a lot, in part about Max deciding to keep the baby and it may have been too late to have an abortion anyway. They actually had a baby shower for him, which I'm told didn't go well. They finally split in February 2009, and Schecter had a lot to do with it. Apparently the boyfriend hated Schecter and vice versa. In her interview after the murder Max said Jenny might have been responsible for the break-up. Anyway, about a month later was the going-away party where Schecter was murdered. Max was there, and was maybe five to six months pregnant at the time. It seems that Schecter was the only one keeping Max tied to the group, and after Schecter's funeral Max pulled up stakes and disappeared, so far as any of the group knew. It tells you something that none of them appears to have kept in touch, or asked about the birth of the baby. They were all pretty shook up by Jenny's murder and dispersed somewhat anyway. Two of them moved to New York, Pieszecki confessed, falsely, we believe, and went to jail. McCutcheon went off the deep end into booze and drugs for a couple months, that's how she mourns, before she got her shit back together and managed to get back on track. Helena Peabody was filthy rich and had two kids in Europe she went off to visit. That left just Kit Porter, who was the owner of the place they all hung out, and she's still there.

COLLINS

Okay, one thing I’m hopelessly lost about. At what point do I call this person her, and when does he become a him? I know I’m not politically correct, but I’ll be damned if I know how to fix it. I mean, the sentence, “He got pregnant and had a baby” makes my head hurt. I’m not trying to be a douche bag.

CARMEN

Don’t worry about it. Everybody struggles with it. (Breaks into a giant yawn she covers with both hands.) Sorry, but I am physically, mentally and gastronomically exhausted. Can we pick up tomorrow? Lauren, where are we bunking down for the night?

COLLINS

You can probably get rooms here at the Padre, but if you're on the city dime we've got all the usual chains, Days Inn, Motel 6, Red Roof, and some decent mom-and-pops I can recommend.

LAUREN looks at CARMEN.

CARMEN

It's up to you, boss lady, but as far as I'm concerned the shortest distance between two points is from here to the front desk to upstairs. With any luck, I can be in bed and sound asleep in ten minutes.

LAUREN

Sounds like a plan.

**INT. A HALLWAY UPSTAIRS IN THE HOTEL –NIGHT**

The elevator door opens and CARMEN and LAUREN emerge, carrying their overnight bags. They walk down the hall to their rooms. There is awkwardness between them.

LAUREN

Seven o'clock tomorrow morning?

CARMEN

Ohhhhh.

LAUREN (laughs)

Okay, eight o'clock.

They opened the doors to their rooms.

LAUREN

Good night.

CARMEN

Good night.

**INT. INTERCUT INSIDE LAUREN’S AND CARMEN’S ROOMS, AND THE HALLWAY — NIGHT**

A series of fast shots, as follows:

LAUREN on the phone, briefing MARYBETH, as she gets undressed;

CARMEN unpacking, calling her mom;

LAUREN hanging up, getting undressed and getting into the shower. Just as she gets in, she thinks she hears a quiet knock at her door. She pauses, frowns, gets into the shower.

CARMEN in the hallway, outside LAUREN’s room. When there is no response, she returns to her room, undresses, gets in the shower;

LAUREN in the hallway in a bathrobe, hair wet, fresh out of the shower. She knocks quietly on CARMEN’s door.

CARMEN in the shower, doesn’t hear the knocking.

LAUREN in the hallway, returns to her room.

**INT. INSIDE LAUREN’S ROOM AND THE HALLWAY — DAY**

LAUREN is dressed and zips up her bag, leaves the room. In the hallway she sees CARMEN sitting on a bench by the elevator, also ready to go. Things are still awkward.

LAUREN

Been waiting long?

CARMEN

No, just got here.

LAUREN

Want breakfast? (Pushes elevator down button as Carmen stands up.)

CARMEN

That’s your call, whatever you want. But I DO need my morning coffee. They have that coffee shop on the ground floor.

LAUREN

Great.

**INT. “FARMACY CAFE” ON THE GROUND FLOOR — DAY**

CARMEN

Let’s eat here. I gotta try that steak-and-egg burrito. It’s not something I want to eat in your car.

LAUREN

The egg white frittata has my name all over it.

**EXT. OUTSIDE FARMACY CAFE ON THE GROUND FLOOR — DAY**

They eat at one of the tiny tables out by the sidewalk in front of the café and the hotel.

LAUREN

Anxious to get home, or just anxious to get out of Bakersfield?

CARMEN

Both. I have no great feelings for Bakersfield one way or the other, but I can tell you this, I sure don’t like Highway 99 heading up to Central Valley.

LAUREN

The crime scene.

CARMEN

Yeah.

LAUREN

I guess there’s cops who will tell you that you get used to it. Scene of the crime, evidence, gory crime scene photos, stomach-turning autopsy reports. I’m not one of those cops.

CARMEN

No. But Collins is.

LAUREN

Yes, I suppose.

CARMEN

You seemed to get along with him well. I was worried he’d have an attitude because we’re women and from LA. Among other things he probably wouldn’t approve of.

LAUREN

The secret is he and I are both county sheriff’s department detectives. I’m LASD, not LAPD, so he doesn’t associate me with LA the city, or Hollywood, or LaLaLand, or whatever he might want to call it. He may not realize West Hollywood is a highly gay, tiny little municipality located smack dab in the middle of the city, but LASD jurisdiction. He’s Kern County, I’m LA County, so I get a pass. And he thinks the same about you. You’re a county cop trainee, as far as he knows. He approves of that.

CARMEN

I don’t think he approves of Max being trans. It threw him for a loop.

LAUREN (wiped mouth with napkin)

Max being trans threw your entire group for a loop. You maybe most of all.

CARMEN (sips coffee)

Maybe. I still think for me it was that I just plain didn’t like Max even when he was Moira. I didn’t care that he was hyper butch. I think it was cultural, and, well, personal. Max had this big chip on his shoulder because he was a small-town hick from the sticks, and he fell in with a bunch of mostly upscale lipstick lesbians, not only sophisticated big city girls, but LA and Hollywood types at that. Two or three of them full-fledged divas. It didn’t matter he was surrounded by lesbians, and if he had any expectations that he’d find a warm, safe, welcoming reception in the bosom of a bunch of loving, supportive dykes, he was wrong about that. He got off on the wrong foot with me in the first ten minutes he was in town, and he got off on the wrong foot with everybody else the second night in town when we all took him and Jenny out to dinner. He insulted us and then left to go sulk and didn’t come home all night. Then it just got worse. He was a slob around the house. It may have started out as Jenny and Tim’s place, and then Jenny and Shane’s place, but it became Shane’s and MY place. It was Max who was making a mess of my home, Max was an uninvited guest, invading my space and fouling up MY nest that I’d worked hard to create. Max’s gender switch had nothing to do with it.

LAUREN

You’ve been waiting a long time to get that off your chest.

**INT. LAUREN’S CAR ON THE WAY BACK TO LA — DAY**

CARMEN (after long pause)

I have a question.

LAUREN (looks over)

Shoot.

CARMEN

Do most homicide investigations go like this? I had the idea, maybe from TV and movies, and so maybe it’s bullshit. But I had the idea that you started off with a whole bunch of suspects, and narrowed them down to one, the person who actually did it. But our investigation seems to be going the opposite way. We started off with only one suspect, Alice, who confessed, and then Shane as the real primary suspect. And the more we look into it, the more we turn up new suspects. Nikki, for sure, and/or one of her posse. Maybe the guys at the studio. Maybe Tina. Maybe Max. And there’s always Rollo Thomassi, our unsub. It’s getting more complicated, not less.

LAUREN

Yes, you’re entirely correct. That’s how it’s going. Does that discourage you in some way?

CARMEN

No. It’s just, well, not what I expected.

LAUREN

What did you expect?

CARMEN

Shit, I don’t know. Not this. But I don’t know what instead. (Pause) Lauren, where is Max’s laptop?

LAUREN (thinks)

You know, Detective Morales, that is one damn good question. Call Collins and ask him.

CARMEN (hangs up phone)

He says he doesn’t know anything about any laptop. They never found one. But now he’s thinking about it, too.

LAUREN

Call Max’s work. The name and phone number are in the folder.

Carmen searches through the manila folder until she finds it.

CARMEN

Melvin K. Hildebrand, Fast Fix Golden State Computers. (Dials number.) May I speak to Mr. Hildebrand, please? Thanks. ... Mr. Hildebrand, this is Detective Lauren Hancock, LA County Sheriff’s Department. Yes, we talked a few days ago, about Max Sweeney. I’ve got a question that I think I know the answer to, but I have to ask it anyway, just to make sure. Do you know if Max had a laptop of any kind, and if so, is there any chance he left it at your shop, or in some way you might know what may have become of it? Uh-huh … uh huh … yes, that’s pretty much what we suspected. Okay, thanks for your time. (Hangs up.)

LAUREN

Impersonating a police officer is a felony. He doesn’t know anything about any laptop.

CARMEN

Nope. He said Max had no need of a personal one at work, since they had all the computer stuff anybody would ever need. He said he guessed Max had a computer of some sort at home, but he didn’t know anything about it. He said after Max died the only personal items they found at work were a coffee cup that said Yellowstone Park and a few protein bars.

LAUREN

Okay, humor me. Is there any chance in the world that Max didn’t own a computer, probably a laptop?

CARMEN

Somewhere around zero point zero zero zero chance. Max was an IT guy. He interacted with computers a helluva lot better than he did with people. I know for a fact he owned a laptop back when he lived with Jenny and Shane and me. He e-mailed and surfed the Internet and did everything all the rest of us do. And being Max and being difficult, he didn’t like Apple or Windows, he messed around with something called Ubuntu, one of those open source systems, and he was always messing with it. So where is it?

LAUREN

Exactly, my dear Watson. Dead body by the side of the road, but no cellphone. Room at a boarding house, but no laptop or cellphone there. No car keys. See a pattern?

CARMEN

Theoretically they could be in his car, but there is no car. But I don’t think that’s the answer.

LAUREN

No. The killer took them. So let’s think about that for a moment. (Long pause) Okay, I’m done thinking.

CARMEN

What have you got?

LAUREN

Simplest explanation: A simple burglary of Max’s apartment.

CARMEN

No freaking way.

LAUREN

Correct answer. No freaking way. You don’t force somebody to drink booze and take pills and set up a fake suicide and then run them down at 3 in the morning, all just to cover up a cellphone jacking. And it wasn’t the landlord, because the first he knew Max was dead was when the detectives came to search the apartment. So what else have you got, Grasshopper?

CARMEN

Why take the laptop? Because there’s something in it. Something that might help police identify you, if it was found and examined.

LAUREN

Right. And what would that be?

CARMEN

Well, first, e-mails. To and from the killer, only Max didn’t know the recipient was going to kill him.

LAUREN

And the cellphone?

CARMEN

Easy. Max and the killer talked on the phone. Or text messages, same thing. Probably to set up the meeting that night. Plus who knows what earlier phone calls. Contact information. Phone call trail, e-mail trail.

LAUREN

Max and the killer have a history of communication, and the cellphone and laptop document it. So they had to be eliminated, too, along with Max himself. Now, take the next step.

CARMEN

Since we don’t have the phone, we get the phone records.

LAUREN

Good. That takes a warrant. I’ll take care of it when we get back. Next?

CARMEN

There was more in his laptop than just who he e-mailed. First, there’s the content of the e-mails. And there’s other stuff.

LAUREN

Correct. But what’s your evidence for that theory? Because that’s all it is.

CARMEN

I know. But Max’s murder – it’s not some simple carjacking or robbery, or even some kind of kill-the-tranny hate crime. There’s got to be something else.

LAUREN

I agree. But without evidence, it’s just our guess. Beside the gender business, what else separated Max from all the rest of you? The one other thing that makes him/her different?

CARMEN (thinking hard)

It’s not where we came from, not background. Jenny’s from the same region, Illinois, Shane’s from Texas, I’m from the barrio, Tina’s from Arizona, Bette’s bi-racial, Kit is black, Alice is Irish Catholic/Polish, Helena’s filthy rich. Shit, we’re like a World War II movie, the perfectly distributed cross-section of America. All we need is a Brooklyn Jew and a bunch of penises. We don’t even have orientation in common.

LAUREN

No. But you do have something.

CARMEN

Give me a hint.

LAUREN

Watergate.

CARMEN

Watergate?

LAUREN

Come on, you’re the movie buff. And we already went over this.

CARMEN

Follow the money.

LAUREN

Bingo.

CARMEN

Max had no money.

LAUREN

Double bingo.

CARMEN

Ahh, I see. I have two incomes, I’m comfortable. Shane’s fallen into a money-making machine, and she had some inheritance from Harvey. Alice always made good money, she was comfortable. Tina and Bette made very good money, and Helena goes without saying. Kit has the Planet. Nikki’s a movie star, that goes without saying. Jenny started poor, but hit the jackpot. Max was the only one struggling with income, and it seems clear he was one paycheck away from poverty. None of the rest of us were.

LAUREN

Correct again, Grasshopper. So follow the money.

CARMEN

Max had none, except his paycheck. He got nothing from Jenny’s will. Yet somewhere along the way he found enough money to get his top surgery. I don’t know off the top of my head what that costs, but it’s gotta be five or ten thousand, minimum.

LAUREN

Do you know anything about black market top surgery? Max was doing black market testosterone shots for his transition, according to the testimony in all the paperwork I’ve found.

CARMEN

Yes, he was. One day I found a syringe in the bathroom he’d forgot to put away or throw out. I had a hissy fit about it, partly because at first I thought it was heroin or something. [Flashback opportunity.] I argued with him about it. He was self-medicating and didn’t know shit about what he was doing. Jenny was helping and enabling, and that was the blind leading the blind. Then we held a fundraiser for his top surgery, and he went batshit crazy because we didn’t raise enough. That was when Shane threatened to cut his tits off if he hurt Jenny.

CARMEN

How much did you raise?

CARMEN

Jenny told me around thirty-five, thirty-seven hundred. But it wasn’t enough, by a long shot, so he didn’t get it done, and there was no way to give it back.

LAUREN

So how did Max find enough money to get it done in the last year or so?

CARMEN

Oh, no.

LAUREN

Yes. Come on, you know the answer.

CARMEN

The baby.

LAUREN

Yep.

CARMEN

He sold it on the black market. And used the money for his top surgery.

LAUREN

We can’t prove that right now, but give me a few days. Keep going. You’re doing great.

CARMEN

The baby died. Possibly because Max had the testosterone treatments, then stopped them, but never should have gotten pregnant or carried the baby to term.

LAUREN

Argumentative, but I’ll accept it. Keep going.

CARMEN

The adoptive parents are pissed. They discover Max’s medical history. The baby’s autopsy turns up something. The parents feel cheated. They want their money back.

LAUREN

And?

CARMEN

And all this is in e-mails on Max’s laptop. The letters from the parents. Maybe there’s lawyers involved. Stuff about the birth. Stuff about the black market adoption. Maybe threats. We don’t know who the black market parents are. If they are black market, maybe there’s a reason they couldn’t go to police or use the courts.

LAUREN

And?

CARMEN

And our list of suspects keeps growing and growing. We may have to hire some more new, completely untrained and inexperienced lesbian Nancy Drews to handle our workload.

LAUREN

Do they have to be lesbians?

CARMEN

Not necessarily. Bi would be okay, or even a little butch, but not too, too butch. No pillow queens.

LAUREN

Glad we got that straightened out.

CARMEN

I’m detail-oriented. Where were we?

LAUREN

Max’s missing laptop and Rollo Thomassi, who took it.

CARMEN

It’s been destroyed, along with Max’s car and cell phone. We’re never going to see them again.

LAUREN

Nope. (Carmen doesn’t say anything.) I can see the wheels turning in your brain.

CARMEN

You know a lot about murderers, right? The psychology and all that?

LAUREN

Well, some. I worked homicide, and most of them are pretty simple. Somebody gets pissed and kills somebody else. A drug deal goes bad, so some asshole pulls a gun. The wife hates the husband, the husband hates the wife, somebody snaps. Some strung-out crack addict goes into a Korean market or bodega looking to rob the register. Then you have your serial psychos. There, I've just covered about ninety-eight percent of all homicides.

CARMEN

Okay, I'm talking about the other two percent, then. Maybe one percent of the two percent.

LAUREN

Got it. The answer is, I don't know too much more than anybody else. What did you have in mind?

CARMEN

Is it possible ... have there ever been cases ... where the person kills somebody else, and then completely blanks out on it, actually forgets they did it almost instantly, and actually believes they didn't do it?

LAUREN (mulls it over)

Who we talking about?

CARMEN (hesitates)

Shane.

LAUREN

Yeah, that's what I thought. You were the major cheerleader for the idea that Shane couldn't possibly have done it, because she'd have fallen apart afterward, and could never have hidden it from everybody.

CARMEN

Yeah, I was. But now I'm asking, could she have killed Jenny, you know, by accident. Pushed her, didn't mean to kill her, but Jenny fell and hit her head and slid into the pool, and Shane went into this kind of denial, or shock, or blackout or something. Amnesia. What I mean is, could Shane have done it and then blocked it out so completely she truly believes she didn't do it?

LAUREN

I guess maybe there’s a point zero zero two percent chance. What are you thinking?

CARMEN

The single biggest thing Jenny and Max’s murders have in common is Shane. But I can’t make the puzzle pieces fit.

LAUREN

That’s because they don’t. Okay, let’s say Shane pushed Jenny off the deck and then rolled her into the pool, and then went into some extreme denial mode. Fine. But then a year later she locates Max in Bakersfield, drives out here, forces her to drink most of a bottle of vodka and swallow some oxy, then runs her down, takes her Suburu out into the boonies, abandons it in an arroyo and torches it, done it so well no one has found it since, makes her way back to Gaytown, and nobody the wiser. That about right?

CARMEN

Uhhh, okay, it was a bad idea.

LAUREN

Beg to disagree. It was a bat-shit crazy idea. A lunatic idea. Oh, the first half was pretty good, but the second part? One more idea like that and I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask for your resignation from the Nancy Drew Girl Detectives League.

CARMEN

So I’m on probation?

LAUREN

Double secret probation.

CARMEN

You’re a tough boss.

LAUREN

Tough but fair. Have I happened to mention that I'm a very, very thorough investigator? I am, you know. You know what due diligence is?

CARMEN

Sure. It's when you investigate all the details, even the little ones that you already know, or think you know, or think will be useless, because that's in the job description. Dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s. Check A, B, C, D and E, even if you know C, D and E are nothing.

LAUREN

Right. I'm pretty good at due diligence.

CARMEN

I never doubted it for a moment, Sherlock Hancock. You want to clue me where this is going?

LAUREN

Back to following money. We’re getting court orders to look at Jenny and Nikki's bank accounts. Other people, too.

CARMEN

Yes? And?

LAUREN

I did my due diligence on Shane, got a look at her bank records, income, expenditures, stock portfolio, yadda yadda, the whole financial picture. And like she told me, she's a forty percent partner in Shane's Sugar Shacks, a wholly owned subsidiary of Sweet Things Enterprises, Incorporated. (Carmen smiles to herself.) Sweet Things Enterprises, as I think you may already know, is a limited liability corporation, being Shane's business partnership with Chase. And it is one of the various subsidiaries of Chase-La Jolla Holding Group, Inc., which is Chase's business empire, not just the Sugar Shacks, but all his other stuff not connected to Shane. He's got real estate, beauty salons, a couple of gyms, a health spa, and so on.

CARMEN

He's a very talented guy.

LAUREN

Yep. And seems to be pretty honest, too. No major law suits, no scandals, no observable hanky-panky.

CARMEN

Glad to hear it.

LAUREN

I took a look at Sweet Things Enterprises. Shane told me a couple weeks ago she and Chase were sixty-forty partners, Chase being the sixty and her the forty. She said she put in her settlement money from the arson fire at Wax, and money she'd inherited from Harvey. I'm sure she was telling me the truth as she believed it. But the fact is, she's wrong. Shane’s Sugar Shack may be sixty-forty, but Sweet Things Enterprises isn't. It includes Shane and Chase, and one other investor. It's really a fifty-forty-ten partnership with a silent partner.

CARMEN (coy)

Sounds ominous. I mean, maybe you should investigate who they are. Could be the Russian mob, or, like, a Mexican cartel or something.

LAUREN

My first thought was some bad-ass Mexicans, too, so I got a copy of the financial filings and start-up corporate papers just last night, by e-mail, and read them this morning before we left the hotel. That's how I learned there was a ten percent silent partner in Sweet Things but not Sugar Shacks. It's something called SPC1 Investment Group.

CARMEN

How about that.

LAUREN

S, P, C, One. Investment Group. S, P, C, One.

CARMEN

Sounds like a bunch of doctors and dentists and chiropractors Chase knows. Probably gay doctors and dentists and lawyers investing their money.

LAUREN

Funny thing, the casual observer might come to that conclusion.

CARMEN

But not you.

LAUREN

No, not me. Like I said, I do my due diligence. S, P, C, One. Spicy One. The Spicy One. The Spicy One Investment Group. To me it sounds like it's where Spicy One, whatever he, she or it happens to be, invests his or her or its or their money. Or some of it, anyway.

CARMEN

And you are due diligently going to dig further into the records to find out who SPC1 Investment Group is.

LAUREN

Nah, don't have to. It’s bad-ass Mexicans, all right, like you said. I'm sure you know that in Hollywood people who invest in movies are called “angels.” Well, it appears Chase and Shane have an angel backing their company. According to the records, SPC1, the silent partner, put up the start-up money for Shane’s Sugar Shacks. So silent, in fact, that I bet Shane doesn't even know about it. At first I couldn’t figure out why there was this one corporate level between Sugar Shacks and Chase’s holding company. What purpose did this intermediate level serve? And then I figured out why. I'm willing to bet my Glock and my shield right now that whenever Shane signed whatever paperwork she had to sign to partner up with Chase that she either never read the fine print, that Chase gave her some bullshit fairy tale about investors and corporate subsidiary structures, blah blah blah, and Shane never picked up on it. I’m willing to bet Shane has no idea that Sweet Things Enterprises and the bad-ass Mexicans even exist as her start-up backers.

CARMEN

Could be. I heard Shane was pretty messed up about Jenny's death. And then when they started the project she threw herself into the work. Paperwork and details like that were never her strong suit anyway.

LAUREN

You know her better than I do. I have a theory about all this.

CARMEN

Oh my goodness.

LAUREN

Here's my theory. Shane told me Chase called her up one day with this idea for the Sugar Shacks, explained it to her, talked her into it. But I don't think it was Chase's idea at all. I think someone else suggested it to him. Somebody who knew Shane was likely to crash and burn, or already had. Somebody who knew Shane needed help. Somebody who knew the Sugar Shack thing was right down Shane's alley, something she'd be good at. And as Chase himself said to her, it would help Shane pull her head out of her own ass.

CARMEN

Bad-ass Mexicans can be tricky.

LAUREN

Tell me about it. Anyway, this mystery person sold the deal to Chase. Here's what I think the mystery person said. “Tell you what, Chase. I know this sounds like a high-risk plan, but I believe in this idea so strongly that here's thirty thousand dollars of my own money to invest in it. You can use it for the start-up money, whatever seed money you may need, so there's no risk to you up front. And all I want is to be a secret, silent partner with ten percent of the Sugar Shacks. Just promise me don't ever tell Shane.” That's what I think the S, P, C, One investor said. And then Chase says, “Let’s put in an intermediate layer and call it Sweet Things Enterprises. That’s how we’ll hide the start-up money for Shane’s Sugar Shacks, one layer up.” So I think Shane gets true, honest and legal financial paperwork and tax stuff, income, whatever, from Shane’s Sugar Shack, and it shows a clear sixty-forty split. But Shane never sees any paperwork from Sweet Things, because it’s none of her business, any more than Chase-La Jolla is any of her business. So Shane never sees the bad-ass Mexicans getting ten percent. It’s my guess Sweet Things Enterprises exists for only one purpose: To hide that bad-ass Mexican investment partner, whoever he, she, it, they is or are, from Shane.

CARMEN

Hesheitthey. I like that. It sounds like one of those new gender-neutral pronouns politically correct people try to come up with.

LAUREN

So anyway, that's my theory, pronoun notwithstanding. Care to comment on it?

CARMEN

No, I don't think so.

LAUREN

I figured.

CARMEN

It all sounds wildly speculative and unbelievable. Where to, now?

LAUREN

Let’s pick up Shane and go to lunch at the Planet. That way we can talk to Kit.

CARMEN

Great. I’m hungry.

**INT. THE PLANET -- DAY**

KIT is ringing up a customer’s lunch check and credit card at the cash register, and looks up when CARMEN, SHANE, and LAUREN enter The Planet. The restaurant is noisy and crowded.

KIT

Oh my lordy, look who’s in the house! The hottest, spiciest DJ west of the Rockies! Oh, darlin’, how long has it been? Two, three years? (Rushes to hug CARMEN)

CARMEN

It’s so good to see you, too, Kit.

KIT

Give your mama a big hug. (Hugs SHANE with one arm, too) Hey, Shane, long time no see. What’s it been, six or seven days, right?

SHANE (laughs)

Five, I think. Chase and I were in last week.

KIT

Oh, my girls, my girls, my girls. (Turns to LAUREN.) Hi, welcome to The Planet. I hear you’re with these two?

LAUREN

I am, indeed. (Shaking hands.) I’m Lauren Hancock. I’ve not only heard a lot about you, I’m a big fan. I still have your Kit Porter’s Blues album, on vinyl, it’s always been one of my favorites. I get weak in the knees when I hear Longing Too Long Tonight.

KIT

That one paid for a lot of vodka tonics over the years. I shoulda put the money into mutual funds, but I drank it up instead. Y’all here for business or pleasure?

CARMEN

Both, we want to eat, and we also need to talk to you if you can get free.

KIT

Sugar, the only things we got here for free are hugs and my good advice. Let me see what I can find.

Kit surveys the room. Every table is taken, and there are four other women by the door waiting for a table.

KIT

Gonna be a few minutes wait. No, I got a better idea, let’s go in the back. Follow me. (Passes by the register, tells a waitress:) Colleen, when you get a second can you bring a couple menus and three set-ups into the back?

COLLEEN

Sure thing. Hey, Shane.

SHANE

Hey, Colleen.

KIT (to CARMEN, on way to back room)

You been tantalizing them topless hula girls in Hawaii and Tahiti and Bora Bora, way I been hearing it.

CARMEN

Oh, yeah, by the dozens.

At the back of the kitchen. Kit has a cubby for her office, and near it a small table she and the staff use for their own meals and sometimes as a work area. There are metal fold-up chairs against the wall and Kit pulls them out and sets them up.

KIT

Sit down, sit down, I’ll be back in a minute, go ahead and order.

CARMEN

This is good because we can brief Shane and Kit at the same time.

**INT. BACK ROOM AT THE PLANET-- DAY**

KIT

(everyone eating)

Okay, let me start this way. I was never as close to Jenny as you two were, for the obvious reason I never had a thing with her, and I wasn’t as close to her as Bette and Tina, because they lived next door and saw her much more often than I did. I liked her well enough, I guess, but maybe my distance from her gave me a little better view, you know? And hey, far be it from me to call somebody a diva, or criticize them for being difficult and even fucked up, because I wrote the book on that before Jenny ever got out of kindergarten, and you guys know that. But here it is. Jenny was a strange chick. I’m not saying anything you don’t know, right? I watched her over six years or so, as she changed. I can’t truly say I watched her grow up, because I’m not sure she ever did. But she sure did change. That was one changeable gal, all right, know what I’m saying?

LAUREN

Okay, I understand.

KIT

Carmen, back when you and Jenny were a thing, she was still kind of sweet and innocent, at least on the surface. I’m not sure I want to say this out loud, but you know me and my mouth, I’m gonna say what I think. Back then there were days when I thought you were the best thing could have happened to Jenny, to keep her feet on the floor. And then after that went south, there was you and Shane. And again I thought you were the best thing ever happened to Shane. By a country mile.

Shane is looking at the floor. No one makes eye contact.

KIT

Sorry, Shane, that’s not a dig at you. But baby, you fucked up when you let this hot tamale get away, and I wouldn’t be saying this if I didn’t know you already knew it. But anyway, back to Jenny. I often wondered if Carmen and Jenny breaking up started anything, because not too long after she’s sitting there cutting her legs the morning Angelica was born, remember? She went off the deep end, goes to that funny farm back in Illinois and comes back dragging Max with her. I mean, my precious baby Jesus, she goes from Carmen to Max. That’s like me dating Sidney Poitier and ditching him for O. J. Simpson and a drawer full of butcher knives.

LAUREN

What about Max?

KIT

Far as I’m concerned, Max was one box of Saltines away from being a bona fide cracker. I think the only reason she wasn’t racist or bigoted is because she started out lezzie her own self, and then trannie, so she sort of HAD to be liberal and tolerant, you know what I’m saying? But if she’d been born straight, you can’t tell me one day Max wouldn’t be a member of the KKK women’s auxiliary, bashing Muslims, praying for the salvation of queers and faggots in some backwoods church somewhere. I just couldn’t ever see Jenny getting together with Moira when they came back from Illinois. I mean, what the fuck was THAT about, you know? I can’t think of any two people had less in common, by temperament, or education or, hell, you name it. You know that song by my gal Billie Holiday, Strange Fruit? Well, Jenny and Moira, that was some strange fruit. Then all that transitioning stuff. I mean, on paper, I’m perfectly fine with that. I get it there’s people like that born into the world, and they can’t help what they are and they gotta do what they gotta do. I get it. But on the other hand…. (Pause)

LAUREN

Yes?

KIT

On the other hand, that Max was one fucked-up chick, and transitioning to a man didn’t unfuck her. And put her together with Jenny, well. I just never figured out what the attraction was, either way. Mostly, I just keep my distance and tried to keep my big mouth shut much as I could, given my close personal friend the bottle of gin, and my general open, sweet disposition. (Everyone laughs.)

LAUREN

Tell me about that last week or two. Jenny and the thing about Bette being unfaithful with Kelly.

KIT

Sheee-it. All right. First off, Bette ain’t really my half-sister, she’s my full sister, period, and always has been. And as sisters, we’ve had plenty of fights over the years. Carmen, you have sisters, you know what that means. Lauren, you have sisters?

LAUREN

One. And I have brothers, which is even worse, so I know where you’re coming from.

KIT

Right. So bottom line what I’m saying is, Bette’s my sister and I love her to death, and Tina’s my sister-in-law, and Angelica ... well, that’s my family, and you don’t hurt my family. You hurt a member of my family, I’m coming after you. Period. End of sentence.

LAUREN

Understood.

KIT

So one day Jenny starts acting especially weird, even for her, hinting that at this party they had Bette was cheating on Tina. She wanted me to talk to Bette, get her to confess it to Tina. Well, to this day I can’t tell you which of those two parts was crazier. Not that Bette might have had an affair or cheated, because we all know over the years Bette had done exactly that. Ain’t none of my dead father’s two girls been saints, you know? But the time we’re talking about, I knew Bette and Tina were solid. And what Jenny wanted Bette to do was essentially split that family apart. I don’t know what the fuck was in her head, because it made no sense to me whatsoever, asking me to ask Bette to confess to Tina. I mean, what the fuck, you know? Confess? Shit, even if it was true, who the fuck was fucking Jenny Schecter to force Bette to confess to Tina something Jenny had no business with? (Pause, shakes head) And then Jenny begins to up the game. Says she’s got evidence. “What fucking evidence,” I ask. She’s coy, but says she has it. “Go fuck yourself,” I think to myself, but I don’t say it out loud. Finally, the bitch shows it to me, on her cellphone. Shot from your house, Shane, looking into Bette and Tina’s kitchen window. Kelly got her back to the camera and the sink, and Bette seems to kneel down, you know, going down on her.

LAUREN

When did this happen?

KIT

Oh, that night. Night of the party. Jenny and I were exploring the house, you know, Bette and Tina’s renovations, the new master bedroom and all. I hadn’t really had an opportunity to see them until that night, so we’re alone in the master bedroom, her and me. And that’s when she starts. “I have to talk to you, Kit.” Real serious, you know, real intense, like she get. I didn’t believe a word until she showed me the movie on her phone.

LAUREN

Then what did you think?

KIT

First thing was shock. Saw it with my own eyes, Bette going down on Kelly right there in the kitchen. I was pretty pissed, thinking Bette had lied to me. So I’m kinda steaming on the inside, you know? But we go back to the media room and watch the farewell tape some more, and then next thing you know Alice comes into the room and starts yelling about Jenny, and then everything happened and I didn’t give it any more thought for, like a few days or more. Soon as they got cleared by the police Bette and Tina moved to New York. I wanted to talk to her about it, but face-to-face, I didn’t want to do it online with Skype or anything, and anyway it would have to be when Tina wasn’t around, and that almost never happened when we Skyped back and forth. First chance I got to talk to Bette was like a year later, when they came back here for a visit and Tina had some studio meetings to go to.

LAUREN

What happened?

KIT

I told her what I saw. Jenny showed me the thing on her phone. First time we had talked about it Bette was furious, angry. This time she was like, I don’t know. Not don’t give a shit but maybe resigned, I guess. “Kit,” she says, “I’m telling you the god’s honest truth. Kelly dropped a champagne glass and I was bending down to clean it up. Yes, I know what it might look like, but it isn’t true.” And I just said okay, I’m sorry I brought it up. I apologize. And we never talked about it again.

CARMEN

Lauren, can we please tell her?

KIT

Tell me what?

LAUREN

We’ve got good news for you. We had our forensics people look at that video. They blow it up, slow it down, measure angles and stuff like that. Turns out Bette was telling the truth. Yes, she was bending down, but the forensics people say Bette’s face had to be at least a foot or more away from Kelly’s crotch. There’s no way she was going down on her.

Kit leans forward and buries her face in her hands. They give her a minute. Finally she sits back.

KIT

How come nobody told me?

LAUREN

Report only came back a few days ago.

KIT

A few days ago? You mean, they didn’t look at it way back then?

LAUREN

No.

KIT

No? What do you mean, no? Does Bette know?

LAUREN

No, not yet. We’re going to tell her when we talk to her.

KIT looks from LAUREN to SHANE to CARMEN, perplexed.

CARMEN

Kit, here’s what happened. Nobody looked at it because the entire investigation got put on hold when Alice confessed. If that hadn’t happened, then probably somewhere along the line somebody might have looked at it and cleared Bette of Jenny’s accusation. But even if they had, it wouldn’t have cleared Bette of the suspicion she was the one who killed Jenny. If Jenny believed the video to be true, it wouldn’t have mattered that Bette knew herself to be innocent. Jenny was essentially blackmailing her to confess something to Tina that would have broken up their family. It wouldn’t have mattered if it was false. So absolving Bette of the original accusation of cheating was irrelevant, it was still a motive for murder whether it was true or false. But see, proving it was false never came up.

KIT (shakes head)

This is a lot of stuff I gotta think about.

CARMEN

It is. And there’s more, if you’re ready for it. It doesn’t have anything to do with you, Bette, or Tina.

KIT

Oh, thank Christ. Okay, I guess you better give it to me.

CARMEN

You know the stolen tapes of the movie Lez Girls they found in Jenny and Shane’s attic? The one everybody thought Jenny stole?

KIT

Yeah, the missing movie. What about it?

CARMEN

Jenny didn’t steal it. Nikki Stevens did.

KIT looks at her blankly, then at SHANE and LAUREN.

KIT

Now you’re just fucking with me.

CARMEN (laughs)

Yeah, well, guess what. I know, I know, I spent a couple years thinking Jenny stole them, too. So did Shane, and just about everybody else, with a few key exceptions.

KIT

What exceptions?

LAUREN

I’ll take this part, Carmen. Here’s how it went. You remember that night, they had everybody come to the station and give statements. You were one of them.

KIT

Sure, how can I forget?

LAUREN

I know. Anyway, when Marybeth and Sean interviewed Nikki Stevens, at first she played innocent, but eventually confessed she was the one stole the movie. In defense of Marybeth, you have to remember, they were in the first twenty-four hours of a major murder investigation. The general procedure is the detectives keep the information they get under wraps until things start getting sorted out. In other words, the very last thing Marybeth was gonna do was run around to each interview room and tell all you suspects that Nikki stole the movies. But what DID happen was Alice confessed to pushing Jenny off the deck and pushing her into the pool. And after that, everything else pretty much stopped. What that meant was, the stolen movie negatives therefore had nothing to do with Jenny’s murder. You follow? So it became secondary. Marybeth talked to Aaron Kornbluth at the studio, that was the correct next step, since the negs were studio property as well as the studio’s problem. I’ll give you one guess what the studio wanted to do.

KIT

I can guess. Tina and Bette and everybody were pissed at them anyway, for changing the ending and being chickenshit about the theme. So let me guess: The studio wanted to bury the whole thing. Jenny, Adele, Tina, the movie, and most of all their precious star, Nikki Stevens.

LAUREN

Kit, I’m not even gonna give you the bronze medal for that one. Not even tin.

KIT

So the studio wanted everything hushed up. And the biggest part of it was not telling the whole world that big-name movie star Nikki Stevens stole them, and unknown writer Jenny was innocent.

LAUREN nods.

KIT

I’m a little disappointed Marybeth went along with it.

LAUREN

In defense of Marybeth, who has gotten some flak for this clusterfuck, Marybeth didn’t totally fuck up. Yes, her case got fucked up, but there wasn’t much she could do about it. Alice confessed, that was the first thing that fucked it up, and then procedurally, the case got turned over to the DA’s office for processing. The studio not only didn’t want to press charges against Nikki, it was never openly acknowledged the negatives were ever missing in the first place. What was Marybeth supposed to do, hold a press conference and tell everyone that the negatives for a bad, out-of-control movie directed by a prima donna novice got stolen but were now returned? Cops don’t hold press conferences saying there was no crime and no one’s being changed with anything.

SHANE (grumbles)

They should have.

CARMEN

Well, you know, this is the real world. Much as I hate to admit it. But Hollywood is a company town, and its business is making and selling movies and TV shows and music. You know how many TV pilots are made every year? Hundreds. And when they die, when they get cancelled, there’s no announcement, no press conference. What this town does is it lets bad movies and bad TV shows die very quiet deaths, if they can get away with it, and because there’s just so many of them. That’s what happened to Lez Girls. The project died, and they let it, and there was no funeral. That’s Hollywood. That’s just the way it is. Happens every day, and ten times a week. “Forget it, Jake, it’s Chinatown.”

KIT

Huh?

CARMEN

Sorry. It’s a line from a movie.

KIT

Oh, right. I should have known, you being the movie gal. Speaking of which, was Jenny’s movie really that bad? Tina worked on it really hard.

CARMEN

I know she did. The thing is, we’ll never know. From what I understand, they never got to the editing stage. All the stuff in the cans, they were the dailies, all the unassembled pieces. For all we know, maybe some editing genius could have cut it together and made a half decent flick out of it. At least until we come to the problem of the ending being different. But who knows? Maybe it’s brilliant. Shane, do you know if they ever shot Jenny’s original ending?

SHANE

I don’t have any idea. Jenny and I walked out the day Adele took over, so I don’t know what they shot afterward. I never paid much attention to what they were shooting, anyway. I came in, did hair, hung out, and went home.

LAUREN (glances at her watch)

Kit, we’ve taken a lot of your time already, and I’m grateful. Before we go, I have to ask you the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question. Given a lot of new information, who do you think killed Jenny?

KIT

That ain’t too hard. Not Bette, not Tina. Not Alice. Not Shane. Not Helena. I can’t say about Max, but I admit I didn’t care for him much. That’s about all the ones I know. I never met this Adele at the studio, or the other studio people. I don’t think I ever met Nikki, but everybody say she cray cray. So if I had to say somebody who was there, my money’d be on Max. But still, coulda been somebody else. Sorry if that’s not helpful. We outta here now?

LAUREN

Yep, soon as you bring us the check.

KIT

Check? You jokin’, right, po-leese girl?

LAUREN (laughs)

I thought you said the only things free at The Planet were hugs and your good advice.

KIT

I did say that, and you girls better git on the road ‘fore I change my mind and Colleen brings you back a check for hunnert and ninety-seven dollars and fifty-four cents. That’s food, gratuity and advice.

They laugh, get their hugs, and go. As CARMEN gets her hug, KIT whispers,

KIT

Thanks for telling me about Bette. I lost a lot of sleep over it.

CARMEN

I know you did. It’s over now.

KIT

Happy ending.

CARMEN

Happy ending.

KIT

Now go get one for Alice.

CARMEN

We will.

KIT

That detective gal. She easy on the eyes.

CARMEN

You know, I was thinking the same thing (winks).


End file.
